Former DA provincial chair Veliswa Mvenya did a U-turn on the stand on Monday in the crimen injuria case against a former DA activist who has accused Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Athol Trollip of trying to bribe her.
The Port Elizabeth Magistrate’s Court heard that Mvenya had been in telephonic contact with Trollip’s accuser, Nontuthuzelo Jack, 47, before the allegations surfaced.
Testifying on behalf of Jack, Mvenya first denied having anything more than e-mail contact with Jack but then admitted later that there had been several calls between them over a four-day period before the claims came to light.
The crimen injuria charge against Jack stems from her allegations that Trollip had tried to bribe her to dig up dirt on Mvenya.
Asked by prosecutor Jomari du Toit if she had been in contact with Jack before the bribery claims were made, Mvenya said she had first been introduced to Jack via e-mail and had only met her face to face on April 1 2016 at a meeting with DA federal council chair James Selfe.
The bribery allegations were first made on March 20 2016.
Mvenya was in New York at the time the bribery allegations were made and had learnt about them from a DA councillor who had sent a WhatsApp message to her detailing Jack’s claims and an article published in The Herald’s sister publication, the Daily Dispatch.
When Du Toit presented Jack’s cellphone records to Mvenya – showing numerous calls between the two women in early March 2016 – Mvenya changed her tune, but was adamant that she had not been asked about telephone calls, but rather when the first contact was made.
“I spoke to [Jack] after emails were sent. I had telephonic communications with [Jack] before I went to New York,” Mvenya said.
It was specifically put to Mvenya that during the period of March 3 to 6 2016, at least seven phone calls were made between her and Jack.
There had been other calls between them before that as well which, according to Mvenya, were to do with the alleged interference with candidate lists and not related to the bribery matter.
Mvenya conceded that calls had been made between March 3 and 6.
Mvenya has since resigned from the DA and she was replaced as provincial chairperson after a new leadership was elected last year.Details of the strained relationship between Trollip and Mvenya during the run-up to the 2016 local government elections also came to light during Monday’s testimony.
“[Trollip and myself] were not on talking terms at the time,” Mvenya said.
“When I heard about the [bribery] allegations, I was shocked . . . and terrified.”
Mvenya admitted that the relationship between her and Trollip became strained when he did not support her re-election as provincial chair and that he did not support her putting forward Jack’s name as a DA councillor.
Towards the end of Mvenya’s cross-examination, Du Toit put it to her that if someone had planned to bribe someone else, would they not do so in secret.
“I wouldn’t know,” she said. After agreeing that it would not be possible to be unnoticed if Trollip had met Jack in a DA branded vehicle as Jack had testified earlier, Mvenya asked if she could pose a question.
“No, you may not ask questions – you are not here to ask the questions,” magistrate Pumla Sibiya said, before halting the court proceedings.
Recalled as a witness after Mvenya’s testimony, Trollip said he had met her about 19 years ago and had worked very closely with her prior to the 2016 incident.
“We had a very close relationship – our relationship became strained after allegations were made of interference with candidate lists,” he said.
In December 2015, Mvenya received e-mails from Jack claiming that Trollip had interfered with due processes in the selection of candidates.
Mvenya told the court she had been in telephonic contact with Jack about these allegations prior to the March 2016 incident.
Trollip’s wife, Janine, had previously testified that on the morning of March 20 2016 she and Trollip were attending a church service in Port Alfred at the same time that the alleged bribery supposedly took place in Motherwell.
Photographic evidence proving Trollip and his wife were at the Port Alfred church that morning had previously been submitted to the court.
On Monday, however, Jack’s legal representative, Eric Skepe, handed in photographs of an aircraft owned by Trollip’s friend, Rory Gailey, as evidence.
Asked by Du Toit what the relevance of the photographs was, Skepe said it was to prove that Trollip had access to “any fast method of transport”.
Trollip told the court he had known Gailey for a number of years. “I have never travelled with Rory in his aircraft – ever.”
It emerged later that Gailey had only bought the aircraft in December 2016 and had received his pilot’s licence in September that year.
The matter was postponed to Friday.