Councillor in court for fraud
2007-09-27
THE controversial ANC councillor for Franschhoek, Gordon Pheiffer, appeared in the Paarl magistrate’s court last week on charges of fraud.
This latest court appearance of Pheiffer stems from an incident in October last year when he contracted a family member, Paul Williams, to do paint work for the Stellenbosch municipality.
A payment of R10 000 was agreed upon, but on payment, Pheiffer alleged that the municipality had mistakenly paid R31 000 into Williams’ account.
Allegedly Pheiffer deman-ded that Williams repay him the excess of R21 000. Williams did this, but the money was ne-ver transferred to the Muni-cipality.
According to the charge sheet, Pheiffer maintained that Williams’ quotation for the work was indeed R31 000. He also admitted that Williams owed the amount of nearly R21 000 for a car he had bought from him.
Ever since these charges were laid against Pheiffer, there have been heated discussions about Pheiffer’s future in the Stellenbosch municipal council.
The DA-controlled council approached the provincial minister for local government, Richard Dyantyi, to have Pheiffer removed from office.
But to date, Dyantyi has yet to react to these requests.
Pheiffer in turn obtained an interdict against the council to prohibit them from discussing the case of fraud against him during a council session.
Another case of fraud which is currently being investigated against this maverick councillor, is that of the unlawful allocation of a Safcol house to a friend.
Pheiffer also appeared in court earlier this year on charges of riotous behaviour and participating in an illegal march in Franschhoek.
His latest case has been postponed until 19 October.
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