Ike Boss is a communications practitioner from Cape Town.

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Duly instructed, I have today submitted a letter to the IEC in answer to an extraordinary objective: My client wishes no action to be taken by the IEC, but only to note an objection to a DA candidate on the Western Cape list.

Therefore, this submission is made after the 27 March due date for objections, yet before the 2 April Electoral Court review deadline.

My client wishes to indicate that the following DA claim is unreliable:

“… proud to have the most advanced and intensive candidate selection process to ensure that all our public representatives are fit-for-purpose and have the requisite qualities to serve communities across the length and breadth of the country’, is unreliable and provides no assurance that unworthy candidates will be disqualified in order to protect voters. My client notes that her objection is but against one candidate, and that several others may well have escaped disqualification despite the so-called “most advanced and intensive candidate selection process”.

To this end, my client has authorised the exclusive publication on The Cape Independent, of the letter. Here is the text of the submission – ten annexures are attached to the original, totalling several hundred pages; the items only are noted in this text for publication:

Objection: Provincial: Western Cape – 23 690628****08* – MEMORY BOOYSEN

I have no delusions about the probability (possibility?) of having a DA candidate removed by the IEC. This objection is submitted after the due date in deference to the extraordinary demands on IEC time and resources, and serves merely to alert the IEC, and voters, and to remind the DA, that Memory Booysen is not fit for public office on two grounds:

1. GENDER ABUSE

1.1.      Several occurrences of abuse since 2012, are on record (ANNEXURE 1), and:

1.1.1.   20 June 2016       : Mayor sexting scandal unfolds;

1.1.2.   31 August 2016   : Booysen overcomes job-for-sex scandal;

1.1.3.   6 October 2016   : Eden Mayor in hot water again?

1.2.        The abuse had been known to the DA at the time. (ANNEXURE 1, esecially a and b.)

2. MISLEADING COUNCIL

2.1.        The DPCI is investigating Booysen. This fact can readily be confirmed. Complaints include misleading council resulting in resolutions on several matters relating to salary and bonus and gratuity payments to Garden Route District Municipality (GRDM) Councillors and staff (ANNEXURE 2).

2.2.        Criminal complaints (28 February – CAS 226/2/2024) have been filed against Booysen for contravening s.173(4) and (5) of the MFMA, and s.3 of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act. The charges relate to an incident in June/July 2012 when then Bitou Executive Mayor Booysen deliberately misled the Bitou Council and caused the Council to take an unlawful decision to “withdraw” charges of serious financial misconduct against then Municipal Manager Monde Stratu. (ANNEXURE 3.) Then Bitou Councillor Johan Brummer reported the issue in detail to then Western Cape Minister for Local Government Anton Bredell on 2 August 2012 (ANNEXURE 4) and requested Bredell take appropriate action. Bredell did not respond, nor did he act. (The late filing is a function of a continuing 13-year court battle between Brummer and the DA, and the timing had been occasioned by a current DA legal manoeuvre.)

2.3.        Bredell was investigating Allegations Of Maladministration, Corruption, Fraud and/or Other Serious Malpractice at the GRDM, where Booysen is the current executive mayor, since 28 March 2022 (ANNEXURE 5). Bredell had also launched a Section 106(1)(a) of the Local Government: Municipal Systems Act investigation on 17 March 2023 (ANNEXURE 6).

2.4.        The allegations investigated, inter alia, led to a DA Federal Executive sanction for a Caucus Motion of No Confidence in Booysen (ANNEXURE 7), failed by a single vote for a self-serving reason subsequently made apparent by Caucus Chair Hilton Stroebel. (ANNEXURE 8.)

2.5.        Yet, on 4 March 2024, Bredell reported to the DA’s Federal Candidates’ Election Committee that his investigations uncovered no wrongdoing.

2.5.1.     Be advised that this DA internal finding did not terminate, nor  interrupt, the formal DPCI (2.1. above) investigation into the same complaints.

2.5.2.     Be further advised that earlier similar complaints against Booysen, in 2012,  were never even investigated by the DA (2.2. above).

2.5.3.     Be further advised that then leader of the DA, Ms Helen Zille, refused to even consider investigating allegations of abuse against Booysen in 2012 (1.2. above) and that evidence informing the accusations of 2016 (1.1. above) decayed for want of attention.

2.5.4.     Be further advised that DA disciplinary management relating to Booysen suggests that it would be imprudent to afford credence to the findings or outcomes of DA investigations, when indeed such investigations are in fact conducted, into complaints attaching to Booysen.

2.5.5. Be further advised that the Booysen candidature would indicate that the DA’s proud claim, “to have the most advanced and intensive candidate selection process to ensure that all our public representatives are fit-for-purpose and have the requisite qualities to serve communities across the length and breadth of the country” – a process with “eleven comprehensive steps” – is questionable.

2.6.        On 11 March 2024, Bredell filed a letter in terms of s.5 of the Western Cape Monitoring and Support of Municipalities Act, 2014 (Act 4 of 2014) on “Allegations of maladministration, corruption, fraud and/or other serious malpractice at the Garden Route District Municipality, with the GRDM Speaker. To date Booysen had not yet formally informed his caucus, or his Council, and subsequently no copy of this letter is available at this time, of the obligation to provide detailed responses by 3 April 2024. This matter relates to a land development triggering a 330-page complaint (ANNEXURE 9) which includes intimations of the 2012 Bitou charges of serious financial misconduct against now GRDM Municipal Manager Stratu. Again, as in 2012, a Booysen led Council summarily dismissed the charges (ANNEXURE 10). The circumstances of 2012, and Booysen’s behaviour (2.2. above), and the circumstances of 2022 and 2023, and Booysen’s behaviour (2.3. above), would indicate that Booysen, in this present s.5 probe, will highly probably repeat the behaviour that were earlier either tacitly or otherwise condoned by the DA, and so frustrate compliant, accountable, transparent governance.

Conclusion

It is reasonably feared that a continuation of Booysen’s confirmed behaviour will compromise governance wherever he serves: a significant risk;  a tangible threat; a substantial real and present bona fide hazard.

Memory Booysen should not be a public representative and his name should not compromise the Provincial NPE2024 (Amended 26/03/2024 17:28) list.

Cordially yours

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