ActionSA: Stay or cough up R200k

ActionSA leader, Herman Mashaba. Picture: Michel Bega A former ActionSA councillor says she has resigned after being forced to sign a contract that ties her to the party until the 2026 local government elections. According to Gen Durand, who left the party on Monday, councillors were told to meet at a hotel in Johannesburg a few days ago.

At that meeting, they were presented with contracts that indicate that if they leave the party before the elections, they will be sued for R200 000. Durand believes the contract is part of a witch-hunt exercise to identify which ActionSA councillors had applied to become DA councillors and those who are planning to jump ship before the elections. “I refused to sign the contract because they did not want to give me a copy, and they did not even want us to go and study these contracts at home.

I mean, this contract had financial implications,” she toldThe Citizen. “This contract is legally binding in nature,” she added. Several sources close to the matter have described this contract as a “political pre-nup.” They believe a majority of councillors were uncomfortable with signing this contract but were forced to do so.

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“People want to keep their jobs, that’s the only reason they agreed to sign,” said a source. Meanwhile, Durand denies that she was planning on leaving ActionSA for the DA. She believes she was racially profiled because she is white.

“I have always been loyal to this party, but things are no longer the same,” she said. Durand believes that ActionSA founder Herman Mashaba is putting everyone in the party in the middle of his personal vendetta against Helen Zille. “They have a long history together, and they parted ways in a manner that is not amicable, and their history is biting at him, and now he wants to show her,” she said.

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