20100420
sabc

Democratic Alliance (DA) leader, Helen Zille, is demanding a public apology from the ruling ANC party for disseminating what she termed, 'a fabricated racist e-mail'. This follows the findings of a forensic investigation into an alleged racist e-mail saga raised by the ANC.

The ANC says they will not back down and stand by their statement that the DA continues to perpetuate racism in the Western Cape.

The saga started when the ANC's Western Cape leadership claimed they received the e-mail containing racist language used in a discussion about by-election results and in-fighting in the Stellenbosch municipality. The e-mail was reportedly sent by the acting municipal manager, Petrus du Plessis to the Local Government Minister, Anton Bredell.

Zille immediately hired auditors to investigate the matter. They found that du Plessis did not have access to the e-mail account from which the message allegedly originated. Zille says the e-mail in question either originated from the ANC or it was fabricated by a third force and then given to the ANC. The investigation cost R72 000.

“Every time this happens it wastes the taxpayer and public money. On that basis we will reclaim the money and the ANC – they must pay for it,” says Zille.

But the ANC is sticking to their guns: “This matter must be investigated. We are still taking the matter to the Equality Court and the Human Rights Commission,” says ANC’s Mandla Dlamini.

However, Price Waterhouse Coopers stated in the report that they could not verify the authenticity or validity of the records and documents made available to them.

They also stated the scope of their work was limited to review of all the evidence made available to them.