Pretoria - Tshwane councillor for Defenders of the People Sipho Mokone has quashed allegations that he attempted to bribe ActionSA chief whip Kgosietsile Kgosiemang with R2 million, in exchange for his vote for former Cope councillor Dr Murunwa Makwarela as mayor.
Cope's sole candidate, Makwarela, aligned himself to the EFF and ANC.
Last week, Kgosiemang and ActionSA provincial chairperson, Funzi Ngobeni, pressed criminal charges related to bribery allegations at Olievenhoutbosch police station.
But, Mokone told the Pretoria News that the allegations levelled against him were unfounded, saying he was contemplating taking legal action against his accusers.
“I want to sue him (Kgosiemang) for the allegations that he made because I believe this is defamation of character. He is dragging my name in mud,” he said.
He said he was still in consultation with his lawyers, seeking legal advice on how to approach the matter.
Mokone said it was untrue that he met with Kgosiemang at a shishanyama in Centurion and made him an offer to pay his annual salary until the end of his term as a councillor in 2026. It was said that the total amount was equivalent to R2m.
“How possible is it that someone can try to bribe someone with R2m? It is against the policy of our party. I haven’t met the guy in Centurion; I only know him from the council.”
He said ActionSA should stop making damning allegations against him, but should rather focus on “sorting out its house because its current status shows that it is a mess”.
“ActionSA is on auto-pilot. It is a mess. They dismissed one of their councillors, Nkele Molapo, because she is in a relationship. How can you dismiss someone for that? I think they are trying to find a scapegoat,” he said.
Defenders of the People spokesperson Tukela Zamani said: “The national task team sat on the matter for the first time, where a councillor was given an opportunity to give an explanation on the matter.”
He said the task team came to the conclusion that the “allegations are unfounded” after hearing Mokone’s side of the story.
He said the party appreciated the fact that ActionSA had reported the allegations to the SAPS, and they would wait for the law to take its course.
“There is nothing based on all the evidence we gathered that suggested that we should take action against our councillor. We will let the law take its course.”
Zamani said the the party didn’t subject its sole PR councillor in Tshwane to a lie detector test like ActionSA and DA because, “we have never had any reason to doubt the of our councillors to the party”.
Last week, ActionSA fired two of its councillors in the wake of an investigation, that revealed they had voted for Makwarela on February 28.
Mandla Mhlana and Mpho Baloyi were said to have failed a polygraph test to establish whether they had defied their party mandate, by voting for Makwarela as mayor instead of DA caucus leader Cilliers Brink.
Makwarela resigned on March 10 after it was found that he has submitted a fake insolvency rehabilitation certificate to city manager Johann Mettler, in a bid to be reinstated as mayor after he was disqualified as a councillor following news that the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria had declared him insolvent in 2016.
The DA, on the other hand, has not revealed the names of the councillors who might have failed lie detector tests despite pressure from other parties to make their names known.
Pretoria News