Brett Herron, GOOD, secretary-general and member of Parliament has indicated he will remain mum on who leaked information surrounding the costs to the City for funding DA councillor, Nora Grose’s legal bill of nearly R500 000.
This week, Herron wrote a letter to the City of Cape Town’s manager Lungelo Mbandazayo that he will seal his lips on revealing who informed on the information of costs.
But Mbandazayo kicked back stating he was legally allowed and bound to launch an investigation into who had let the cat out of the bag in his offices.
He said in his response to Weekend Argus: “As city manager and information officer of the City of Cape Town, I was legally bound to authorise such an investigation as the publishing of such information amounted to a breach of the Protection of Personal Information Act.
“The investigation will run its course.”
Herron took to the media and social media this week, sharing the letter he had addressed to the city manager and a statement was released.
This follows Herron lifting the lid on the fact that the City had been footing the legal bill of Grose amounting to R470 000.
Grose is presently facing charges of fraud and money laundering involving City Covid-19 relief funds.
Herron called Mbandazayo’s action a “witch-hunt” and argued that officials who “braved” to leak the document were doing so ethically.
“I have advised Mbandazayo that I won’t be able to assist his witch-hunt into who leaked information to me on the costs the City is incurring to defend its alleged criminal councillor, Nora Grose (DA),” he stated.
“Grose has been charged with fraud and money laundering involving City Covid-19 relief funds.
“I published part of the accounting records of the legal costs on my Twitter account on September 8 2022.
“The records were provided to me anonymously by City officials who questioned the moral, ethical and legal failures of using public funds to defend Grose.
“At that point the City had funded Grose to the tune of approximately R500 000.
“Last week, I was contacted by Ms Thaleé de Wet of the Municipal Manager’s office, who said Mbandazayo had authorised a forensic investigation into documents published on my Twitter page on 8 September.
“In my response, addressed today to Mbandazayo (see attached), I reminded him that his fiduciary duty as a Municipal Manager, clearly articulated in the Municipal Finance Management Act, was to protect public funds.
“Instead of questioning the identity of the person/s in his organisation who had the ethics to try and put a stop to your nonsense, he’d do better to question the ethics of the City paying to defend a political appointee charged with defrauding it.
“I advised Mbandazayo to steer clear of political machinations in the DA-led City, and rather follow the prescripts of the law.
“You should advise the City’s political leadership that your administration is obliged to assist the HAWKS and NPA in their investigations, instead of defending the accused councillor, and that the Councillor should not be using public funds for her legal defence.
“You should point out to the politicians that there is a conflict of interests between your administration’s support for the Councillor and your fiduciary obligations imposed on Municipal Managers by the Municipal Finance Management Act.
“Ms De Wet was welcome to meet me, I told him, but even if I knew who sent me the Grose legal bills I wouldn’t share this information and nor was I under any legal obligation to do so.”
City Speaker, Felicity Purchase said it was not for designation to comment while the Mayor, Geordin Hill-Lewis’ office said they had also not gotten wind of it and that it was for their domain but the City.
In May last year, Grose was granted R10 000 at the Atlantis Magistrates’ Court. Her case continues.