DA Beaufort West Constituency Head, Sharna Fernandez laid the complaint at 1 o’clock on Thursday.
Southern Cape police spokesperson, Malcolm Pojie, confirmed that the DA had laid a complaint.
“The DA came to the station to lay a charge. The identity of the person will not be revealed because the person has not appeared in court,” said Pojie.
In an earlier statement the DA said:”Truman Prince, African National Congress Mayor of Beaufort West is unapologetic about the exposed corruption in the letter he wrote to CETA Chairman, Raymond Cele, requesting that a tender be given to a construction company sympathetic to the ANC for the purposes of pilfering the funds meant to empower local construction companies.
This is for the sole purpose of getting an undue ‘cash injection’ for upcoming the Local Government Elections and robbing local construction companies in the process,”
The DA’s complaint against the mayor of Beaufort West comes after he wrote a letter on the 5th of December 2015 to the board chairperson of the Construction Education Training Authority (CETA) Raymond Cele, saying that his African National Congress-led municipality needed “financial injection” for the 2016 local government election and that the municipality exclusively seek construction companies that support the ruling party. Prince is a member of the ANC.
“Incidents like this make it clear that the ANC’s sole preoccupation is for their personal coffers and holding onto power by any means necessary, all the while bleeding the state dry,” said the DA in a statement
DA Spokesperson Phumzile van Damme on Thursday said Prince’s actions show that the ANC was not concerned with the lack of service delivery, mal-administration and subsequent joblessness.
“The Mayor cannot see that this request rises to the level of intent to commit corruption and we contend that this is in contravention of section 3 of The Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act 12 of 2004. This also amounts to a breach of the separation of party and state.
“The Mayor insists that his actions were beyond reproach, claiming that his infraction is above board because the chairperson did not respond. This ‘no harm, no foul’ defence is simply indicative of how the ANC justifies the unjustifiable,” said Van Damme.
Source: African News Agency (ANA)
