DA KwaZulu-Natal deputy leader Dean Macpherson says there is no proof of corruption. Photo by Darren Stewart/Gallo Images via Getty Images
The Democratic Alliance (DA) leadership in KwaZulu-Natal allegedly failed to investigate former Chatsworth councillor Ronnie Pillay’s claims of corruption by his colleagues, whom he accused of collecting bribes from contractors working on a water project in the area.
The party leadership says Pillay’s claims were made in retaliation for him being disciplined by the DA over poor performance, and that he never backed up his allegations with facts or documentation — or opened a criminal case.
However, a recording of a meeting last year between the councillors and DA member of the provincial legislature Mergen Chetty, who is in charge of the Chatsworth constituency, points towards the matter being prevented from going any further in order to avoid embarrassing the party.
Pillay resigned from the official opposition party in March.
He stood against the DA as an ANC candidate in the by-election for eThekwini Metro’s ward 73 last month and lost, despite President Cyril Ramaphosa and other top ANC leaders campaigning on his behalf.
In the recording, Chetty tells the councillors, whose names are known to the Mail & Guardian, that he had called the meeting to discuss Pillay’s claims that a contractor was collecting bribes from subcontractors on their behalf in a R48 million water project in the Chatsworth area.
The meeting, which took place last year, is understood to have been held at the DA Chatsworth constituency’s office and lasted around one and a half hours, during which Chetty interrogated the three councillors over Pillay’s allegations.
Pillay confirmed that he had made the recording because he was concerned that the matter might not go any further than constituency level as none of his earlier complaints had been taken up.
Chetty told the councillors in the meeting that the “wheels have come off” in the constituency, an apparent reference to disputes between Pillay, who served two terms as a DA ward councillor, and his colleagues.
“Ronnie said to me there is some financial dealing about contracts you all have. We haven’t gone into detail. I am saying to you guys, we need to have a discussion.
“If it is nothing sinister, no problem. But if it is something that can come back and bite us in the arse, we are going to have a problem,” Chetty said in the recording.
Chetty, whose comments are peppered with expletives, told the councillors that if they were involved in collecting money from contractors, they needed to come clean with him about it so that the matter could be dealt with.
“If this comes back to bite you in the arse, the whole of Chatsworth will know your stink and the DA gets fucked up,” Chetty said. “Let’s deal with it, see what it is, so that it’s sorted.”
Chetty told the councillors not to discuss the matter with “anybody else outside of this”.
“I don’t trust anybody else with information like this because people can use it to fuck you up in another situation. Is there anything for us to be worried about? Is there any backlash that we are going to have?” he asked.
The councillors denied collecting bribes, saying that their involvement in the project had been limited to the selection of community liaison officers, and to intervening when community members had demanded jobs and inclusion as sub-contractors.
“There is nothing untoward that we did,” one of them said, offering to undergo a lie detector test in order to clear his name.
A second councillor said that there were only allegations against them.
“Fire us for what? There are allegations, nothing more,” the councillor said.
Chetty, apparently unconvinced, told the councillors “if there was money” it should rather be channelled to the DA constituency office as “the party has a right to take donations”, instead of them taking money as individuals.
“Y’all need to get hold of [the contractor] and know exactly how much, [and] what’s happening. We need to nip this thing in the bud,” Chetty said.
“We need to tell him whatever monies he collected, he needs to declare … move it through the constituency. That’s the only way I can see.
“If it gets to a situation where contractors get involved in this, the contractors owe y’all fuck-all. They’re not going to throw themselves under the bus … you’re fucking around with small fish in the pond. The small fish in the pond eat each other.”
At the end of the meeting, Chetty told the councillors to “have that discussion and come back to us”, saying that they would meet again the following Monday.
Pillay said he had subsequently attempted to have DA KwaZulu-Natal deputy leader Dean Macpherson take the issue further but that the matter had ended there.
“I am very disappointed with the DA,” he said.
He had approached the party leadership instead of the police as he believed this was the correct channel for him to follow to have his concerns addressed.
WhatsApp messages between Pillay and Macpherson — which the M&G has seen — indicate that Pillay was under pressure from the DA leadership over his performance as a councillor and over his absences from work due to ill health.
They also indicate attempts by Pillay last year to have his claims investigated, with Macpherson telling him that “we will need evidence and affidavits please” during an exchange in July.
Macpherson told the M&G this week Pillay and his associates had “shopped” the story about the alleged suppression of his claims of corruption to media houses in the province over the past six months.
“Ronnie Pillay was a former councillor of the DA who defected to the ANC after the party put him under pressure for non-performance after he continued to claim he was sick.
“This led to him missing council meetings, caucus meetings and constituency meetings, as well as not being involved in party work,” Macpherson said.
He said Pillay had then resigned from the DA and joined the ANC, which had fielded him as a councillor in May as it wrongly believed his “brand” would help the party defeat the DA in the ward.
Pillay “repeatedly made allegations against his colleagues but refused to provide any evidence, despite requests for him to do so”.
He was “repeatedly requested to provide evidence of the allegations he kept making so that the party could take it up, but refused to do so”.
“The party can only investigate complaints against evidence provided to it, which Mr Pillay has failed to do,” Macpherson said.
He questioned why Pillay had not reported the matter to the police, as he was required to do in terms of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act, saying it was a criminal offence for him not to have done so.
Macpherson said he was not aware of any meeting between Chetty and the councillors.
Chetty had not responded to questions from M&G by the time of writing.
Pillay joined the DA in 2014 after resigning from the Minority Front (MF), on whose ticket he had originally become a ward councillor, ahead of the national and general elections.
He was returned as DA councillor for the ward in 2016 and 2021, helping the party consolidate its support in Chatsworth, which is now its stronghold.At the time, then DA leader Helen Zille welcomed Pillay and other defectors from the MF into the DA “with open arms” and said it was “wonderful to have them as part of the DA’s blue family”.
