Councillors 'took gifts'
2008-03-27
DRAKENSTEIN municipal councillors of the NPP accepted “gifts” from the controversial Cape Town councillor of the National People’s Party (NPP), Badih Chaaban, before the municipal election last year, according to a report in the Mail and Guardian newspaper this week. Chaaban said he paid councillors, “like Jackie Noland” out of the generosity of his heart. “Shame, these people can’t survive like this.” According to the Mail & Guardian article, Chaaban’s former spokesman, Juan Duval Uys, made a sworn affidavit this week describing visits to the casino in Goodwood to change stacks of brand-new R1000 gambling chips for cash. The money was then used to persuade councillors from other parties to cross the floor. Former NPP national organiser, John van der Merwe, who claims he was assaulted by Chaaban last year, said that he had personally handed over R9 900 to Paarl deputy mayor Jackie Noland and that Noland had received a further R10 000 from Chaaban. “When I paid Noland, which was in her house in Paarl, I paid cash and I paid three other Drakenstein councillors all at the same time. I think most of them received around R9 000 for joining the NPP,” van der Merwe said. Three municipal councillors successfully crossed the floor to the NPP from the ID in September. They are Basil Vos, Joseph Appollis and William Petersen. Jackie Noland also crossed the floor, but was suspended by the ID, and lost her seat in the Council. She recently applied for a High Court order in an attempt to force the ID to return her to her seat in the Council. The court is yet to decide on the issue.
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