PREMIER Helen Zille’s spokesperson, Michael Mpofu, had lodged a complaint with the Press Ombudsman against the Cape Times for its use of the term “Zille’s Spook”, but the Ombud ruled for the Cape Times. Mpofu appealed and the Press Council Appeals Panel upheld his appeal, ordering the Cape Times to run an apology on page one and a statement from Zille, below . For the full ruling go to www.presscouncil.org.za
OVER the past eight months, readers of the Cape Times will have been persuaded that I employed a spy to undertake covert and illegal espionage against my political opponents, inside and outside the DA.
In fact, the Cape Times used the phrase “Zille’s Spy” or “Zille’s Spook” so often, usually in headlines on the front page, that it transitioned into general usage on other media platforms.
It started on November 17 last year with the headline “Zille’s spook: 19 corruption charges, 19 of fraud”.
The opening paragraph alleged: “Paul Scheepers, dubbed ‘Helen Zille’s Spook’, is to face 19 charges of fraud, 19 of corruption and one count of tender fraud relating to his company’s work for the provincial government.”
The meaning of the headline and text is clear to the average reader: I, in my capacity as Premier, hired a spy, who broke the law on my behalf.
This headline was followed three days later with “Zille’s spook had grabber”, which detailed further alleged illegality, and added the juicy detail from “a police source” that I had hired Scheepers to spy on my colleagues who were “seen as a threat” – inside my own party!
At the time this story broke, I was in China, opening a trade fair, but the ANC wasted no time in laying a criminal charge against me, in terms of the Intelligence Services Act (65 or 2002), for “employing a private covert intelligence investigator to execute illegal communications surveillance work on state land and property with taxpayer money to the amount of R115 800”.
I was not arrested when I returned. But detectives came to my office and interviewed me in depth. I gave them all the facts (backed up by documents) which are as follows:
Shortly after the DA ousted the ANC administration in the Western Cape in 2009, I received several warnings that the telephone conversations of provincial cabinet Ministers were being intercepted. So I took the opportunity at a cabinet meeting, on July 22, 2009 (where we received a briefing on taxi violence from Mr Mbulelo Mavata, the Acting Provincial Head of the National Intelligence Agency), to ask whether members of the provincial cabinet were under surveillance. He said “No”. We asked him to confirm this in writing.
Despite repeated follow-ups, the written assurance was not forthcoming, and eventually almost seven months later, in February 2010, the cabinet requested the Acting Director-General to investigate options to install encryption software on the mobile phones of cabinet members to secure their data and conversations.
The cabinet resolution specifically stressed: “No software or equipment may be purchased by any member of the Provincial Government that allow for the illegal surveillance of other individuals.”
I had nothing more to do with the matter. The provincial administration went through the procurement process and, in due course, I was asked to hand my phone to a person contracted to do the work, who turned out to be Paul Scheepers. I saw him for a few fleeting moments, when I handed him my phone, on the way to a meeting. He returned my phone to my secretary. That was the sum total of my interaction with him.
Because the Cape Times was clearly not prepared to believe, nor even report my version of events, but kept hammering the totally false accusations of an “anonymous source” against me as if they were fact, my spokesman, Michael Mpofu, submitted a complaint to the Press Ombudsman (where we lost, for reasons I cannot fathom) and subsequently took the matter on appeal, where we won.
Indeed, Mr Justice Bernard Ngoepe, who chaired the appeal panel, found that the debugging services contracted by the provincial government were “the very antithesis of spying”. We had in fact undertaken “anti-spying” measures, the panel concluded.