Cape Town - Embattled Beaufort West mayor Truman Prince is unfazed about a criminal charge hanging over his head, maintaining his innocence on allegations of graft.
The DA opened a criminal case against Prince at the Beaufort West police station on Thursday, after a controversial letter came to light in which the mayor asks that companies “sympathetic to the ANC” benefit from tenders.
The letter, which landed on Premier Helen Zille’s desk and was addressed to the Construction‚ Education and Training Authority (CETA) chairman, Raymond Cele, seeks a meeting to discuss the possibility of the CETA transferring its responsibility for the tender process for a local construction project to the municipality.
Prince has denied claims of corruption or wrongdoing, saying the letter was aimed at ensuring local businesses and entrepreneurs benefited from the construction of a skills development and trade test centre in the town.
“If I must go to prison to enhance black economic empower in my town, then so be it. But I am not going to apologise for wanting a transfer of the economy of our region from whites-only to include black entrepreneurs.”
Speaker of the Western Cape legislature, Sharna Fernandez, in her capacity as the DA’s Beaufort West and central Karoo Constituency head, laid the corruption charge.
She said she had lodged the charge under the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act, and hoped the police would investigate it as a matter of urgency.
Accusing Prince of running the town “like his own fiefdom”, Fernandez added that the letter was pretty straightforward and blatantly corrupt.
“He’s asking for money in return for kick-backs. There’s clearly a blurred line between state and party.”
She said irregularities and dodgy dealings were common in the local government authority.
“This letter is just the tip of the iceberg. There are irregularities with the traffic cameras in the town which is believed to have been operated with an illegal contract; there’s allegations that the ANC used more than R60 000 of funds from the Beaufort West (municipality) for the party’s birthday bash last year; and, most recently, the mayor allegedly convened an illegal meeting without the town’s speaker during which he allegedly allocated pieces of land and entered into contractual agreements with ANC cadres,” she said.
But Prince said the claims about dodgy dealings at the municipality were untrue.
“If the DA wants to crucify me for trying to uplift the poor then they should go ahead.”
Calling Fernandez a new kid on the block who served the DA’s white interests, Prince said his conscience was clear.
Cape Argus