Mr Pierre Uys (ANC Chief Whip)

Member statement – 12 November 2015

No amount of DA spin and lies can cover up the scandal premier Helen Zille, brought over this Western Cape government with its illegal hiring of a covert operative.

In fact Zille’s obsession and fixation has made her a liability for this government, legislature and DA!

The latest revelation sounds like a horror movie – if it was not as serious: An unstable covert intelligence gatherer – a state official paid by the taxpayer to do the work – was directly hired, bypassing proper competitive tender processes, for an undisclosed period of time by her own department – a state department – for an exorbitant initial amount of R115 800!

The official reason entered says it was to debug cell phones – while the hired operative himself claims (I quote) “we specialise in the extraction, analysis and presentation of data from mobile telephones, cellular networks and all form of mobile computing communications technology” (end quote)! So, we all know that actually means do surveillance on cell phones.

Renowned for spying on her own people and opponents, the ANC waits for the full truth to be disclosed on Zille. And every day more is exposed. The ANC calls on all people, especially staff in Zille’s office, to now come to the fore before they are also entangled in this spy web.

Just this week Zille by mouth of her spin-doctor one Mpofu admitted that her cabinet took the decision to hire the spy. Thus: Zille and all her MEC’s together with senior officials of this regime knew. It is therefore just right that all of them – Zille and those she appointed – now should be charged with Captain Paul Scheepers and stand trial with him for amongst others fraud, perjury and breaching telecommunications laws.

Issued by the ANC Western Cape, 12 November 2015