Ex-DA man claims he was asked to open doors for Tony Leon's firm

A former Tshwane insider has broken ranks, claiming he was asked to find ways of steering city work towards Tony Leon's Resolve Communications just months after the DA took power in 2016.

The claims were contained in a statement, made in affidavit form and seen by IOL, which was the first documented first-hand account in the growing lobbying scandal engulfing the former DA leader's public affairs firm.

The insider did not want his name used, fearing reprisal.

The allegations also formed part of ActionSA's complaint to the public protector.

The official, who was appointed as a senior staff member in the office of then Tshwane mayor Solly Msimanga in late 2016, said he had been asked by then chief of staff Marietha Aucamp to join the latter part of a meeting at the administration's offices in Lyttelton, Centurion.

He said Msimanga, Aucamp and Leon, whom he understood to be the chairperson of Resolve Communications, had been present at the meeting, which took place in late 2016 or early 2017.

"During the discussion, I was asked to consider ways in which Resolve Communications could be incorporated into work being undertaken by the newly established administration," he said.

"From what was discussed during the meeting, I understood that Resolve Communications was seeking to secure consulting or contractual work from the City of Tshwane."

The official said no express instruction had been given to him to award work to the firm, ignore procurement requirements or bypass any lawful process.

However, he said he had formed the clear impression that he was being asked to facilitate or identify avenues through which the company could secure work from the municipality.

"I regarded this as inappropriate because I believed that any company wishing to do business with the city should compete through fair, transparent and properly regulated procurement processes rather than through meetings or discussions arising from perceived political proximity or access," he said.

"The discussion left me sufficiently uncomfortable that I made a conscious decision not to pursue the request or to identify opportunities through which Resolve Communications could become involved in work for which I was responsible."

The official said he had taken no steps to advance the matter and had no personal knowledge of whether Resolve ultimately secured any work from the city.

He said that since the matter became public, he had been approached by a number of people who independently shared accounts suggesting Resolve had sought to secure work from organs of state after the DA assumed office in various institutions.

"While I cannot verify those accounts and make no allegation regarding their accuracy, they reinforced my view that the interaction I witnessed may not have been an isolated incident," he said.

"I depose to this affidavit because, in light of the recent public controversy concerning Resolve Communications, I believe it is appropriate to place my own firsthand recollection on record."

Both Msimanga and Leon had denied the allegation.

DA Tshwane caucus leader Cilliers Brink on Wednesday dismissed the claims as a "big, fat nothing burger".

Resolve Communications has refuted claims of wrongdoing and said it has, over the past two weeks, responded at length to essentially non-allegations of non-wrongdoing. All made as part of an ongoing campaign, for obvious political reasons, to weaponise, mischaracterise, smear, and distort lawful conduct.

"The most recent example is an affidavit, which even on its own account states 'no express instruction was given to me to award work to Resolve Communications, to ignore procurement requirements or to bypass any lawful process.' The only reasonable conclusion to draw is that this is yet another politically motivated and malicious attack, devoid of substance, on a private entity.

"For the avoidance of any doubt, Resolve has never been awarded a tender by any sphere of government in its entire existence. We are fully engaged with our legal team and will respond with full confidence to any legal process that might arise. We have every expectation that the rule of law will prevail. Going forward, we will not be providing a running public commentary on any further attempts to impugn, distort, and defame the work that we do,” the company said.

The affidavit added to mounting pressure on Leon and his firm since Deputy Trade, Industry and Competition Minister John Steenhuisen detailed the allegations in an interview with News24, which first reported the claims.

Steenhuisen, the former DA leader who was recently demoted from the agriculture portfolio, had accused the firm of using its proximity to senior DA leaders to arrange meetings between DA ministers in the government of national unity and its private sector clients.

He had named himself, communications minister Solly Malatsi, former minister Dion George and minister Willie Aucamp as those approached to meet Resolve clients such as Starlink and Redisa.

Meanwhile, a former DA mayor, who asked not to be named, told IOL that Steenhuisen had once tried to discuss the merits of a pending matter with him while he served as an appellate authority.

He said he had shut the conversation down immediately.

"The moment he started talking, I stopped him and said, you appointed me as mayor, so I trust you have faith in me. I think you should leave this to me," he said.

"I am an appellate authority and if you speak to me, then I am compromised. And I won't allow that."

The former mayor said Steenhuisen had accepted this and never called him about a matter again.

Another former DA mayor, André Truter, who led the Saldanha Bay municipality, told IOL he had never encountered Leon or his firm during his time in office.

"I've never heard of Tony Leon. Not once," Truter said.

"Never, never, never in my time as mayor was I ever influenced, or did the party or individuals or senior people within the party try to influence me."

Truter said there had been a clear separation between party and state in the DA, recalling that former party leader Helen Zille had spelt this out at a mayoral breakaway.

"She said to us, mayors, I can't tell you what to do because there is a separation between party and state," he said.

"She said, these are our values and this is what we would like to see done, but never can I instruct you as a mayor what to do and what not to do."

Companies linked so far to Resolve's lobbying efforts as clients included Starlink, Uber, Redisa, Premium Ideas, ShotSpotter and Hot 102.7FM.

ShotSpotter, the US gunshot detection technology now operated by SoundThinking, had a long history with the DA-run City of Cape Town.

The system was first piloted in Hanover Park in 2016 under a R32m contract, championed by safety and security mayco member JP Smith as a game-changer against gang shootings on the Cape Flats.

That contract lapsed in 2019, with the city citing funding constraints and later the Covid-19 pandemic for delays in renewing it, drawing criticism that the project had been quietly abandoned.

The technology was reintroduced from 2023 under a new three-year tender, covering areas including Hanover Park, Manenberg and Lavender Hill, as part of a R860m city investment in safety technology.

Smith confirmed last month that the tender had run its course and was under review.

There was no suggestion that the city's ShotSpotter contracts were irregularly awarded, and the circumstances of Resolve's work for the company had not yet been detailed.

The most explosive claim involved Elon Musk's Starlink, which Steenhuisen said met Malatsi while seeking a licence to operate in SA.

Starlink is not licensed locally because the law requires telecoms operators to be at least 30% owned by historically disadvantaged South Africans, a requirement the company has refused to meet.

In a letter to communications portfolio committee chairperson Khusela Diko on Sunday, headed "Setting the record straight", Malatsi confirmed Resolve had approached his office twice since he took office and that he had spoken to its chief executive Paul Boughey twice by telephone.

"I have also interacted with Resolve's CEO, Paul Boughey, at least twice telephonically since my appointment," Malatsi said.

"The first was regarding the PISA matter shared above, and the second was in relation to his query about accessing the published copy of the Government Gazette that contained the policy directive."

The first approach, in November 2024, had led to a meeting with Premium Ideas SA over concerns about non-compliance with Rica, including the distribution of improperly registered SIM cards.

The second, in June 2025, had related to Hot 102.7FM's licence amendment application before Icasa.

"Initially, a meeting was scheduled for July 2025 but subsequently cancelled by my office after referring the matter to Icasa," Malatsi said.

However, Malatsi denied that Resolve facilitated his meeting with Starlink's parent company SpaceX in September 2024.

"I have met once with a representative of SpaceX, Starlink's parent company, Ryan Goodnight," he said.

"The meeting took place in September 2024 and I was joined by my chief of staff.

"The meeting was facilitated directly between my office and Robert Appelbaum.

"None of these meetings discussed individual licence applications.

"Such meetings are always about understanding each entity's capabilities and sharing insights about the country's current regulatory dispensation."

Malatsi rejected suggestions that Starlink had influenced his policy on equity equivalent investment programmes, saying the work had begun shortly after he took office and formed part of both the DA's 2024 election manifesto and the GNU's medium-term development plan.

Former Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille had previously lifted the lid on Resolve's efforts to secure access to the city.

She revealed that Leon had allegedly lobbied the Mother City on behalf of Uber, while the firm also played a role in the city's Day Zero drought communications campaign.

De Lille exclusively told IOL on Friday that the city had appointed an external communications agency during the water crisis between 2015 and 2018, which then subcontracted Resolve.

"Priya Reddy, who works in communications, is the one who then brought Resolve in as a subcontractor at the time," De Lille said.

"That was when we had the drought crisis, so we instructed Priya to hire an external communications team."

Reddy said Resolve had not been contracted directly by the city.

"The city did not contract Resolve," she previously told IOL.

"They were brought on by our communications agency at the time because they were crisis communications specialists, and this was a crisis getting global coverage.

“I have no relationship with Tony Leon.”

De Lille said Leon had also approached the city on behalf of Uber after the e-hailing company entered the SA market, at a time when legislation did not provide for its business model.

"You know, at the time when Uber came out, there was nothing in our legislation or regulations that covered them, for them to put meters in their taxis and get permits and all of that," she said.

"I didn't deal with it myself. I just said to them, I refer you to the transport MMC. But that is all that I can remember for now."

De Lille also recalled attending a DA fundraising event allegedly hosted by Leon before the 2016 local government elections, to which she and former Western Cape premier Helen Zille had been invited.

Brett Herron, her transport mayoral committee member at the time and now the GOOD party's secretary-general, confirmed he had met Leon at Resolve's request.

"Yes, when I was the mayco member responsible for transport I met with Tony Leon at his request," Herron said.

"He was representing Uber who were trying to arrange operating licences in a regulatory environment that didn't provide for the Uber model of operating."

Herron said Leon and Resolve had also introduced him to Uber executives from SA and the Europe, Middle East and Africa region.

He said that while nothing improper had been requested, there was considerable pressure to resolve Uber's licensing difficulties quickly.

"I was not asked to do anything irregular or improper but I was placed under a lot of pressure to find a rapid solution to the operating licence issue," he said.

"At the time we were supportive of the new technology that birthed e-hailing and encouraged by the public's appetite for using e-hailing for their transport needs.

"So we were working on a solution, within a legal framework that never envisaged e-hailing, in any event."

On Wednesday, Herron demanded that Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis clarify any influence Resolve had wielded in the city, arguing the Western Cape was precisely where the firm would most likely be able to exert influence.

Political analyst professor André Duvenhage said the scandal had its roots in the DA's leadership change earlier this year and Steenhuisen's subsequent demotion.

"I think we need to start and make the assessment by the adoption of the new leadership earlier this year, when Hill-Lewis became the leader," he said.

"Steenhuisen stood back, and at that point in time, he expressed his loyalty towards the party and the party leadership.

"But then we had the Dion George episode, and after Dion George's resignation, we had Steenhuisen not performing within his portfolio of agriculture, ending up in a cabinet reshuffle.

"And as a result of that, they start washing dirty linen in public, and a lot of things are coming to the fore."

Duvenhage said it was clear Steenhuisen had not accepted his demotion from minister to deputy minister.

"As leader of the party, he had a lot of info about the inner workings of the party, and this is coming out at the moment, involving a number of politicians," he said.

He said the scandal could not have come at a worse time for the DA, five months before the elections, in which the party had high hopes of achieving about 30%.

President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday said the allegations resembled the type of conduct seen during the state capture era and that the truth had to emerge.

The DA had confirmed an internal investigation, while the ANC had called for an independent probe, describing the allegations as "perturbing" and "damning".

ActionSA had also pointed to a previous incident in which Leon allegedly attempted to facilitate a R300m contract for a Resolve client during a private meeting with then Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba, who reportedly rejected the deal and lodged an internal complaint with the DA.

ActionSA national chairperson Michael Beaumont said Leon and Hill-Lewis had brushed the claims aside as lobbying because of Leon's enduring influence in the party.

The General Industries Workers Union of SA had called for the public protector, parliament's ethics structures and law enforcement agencies to investigate.

Diko had not ruled out a full parliamentary inquiry.

"We are not ruling out wanting to look into an inquiry on this Resolve Communications. Minister Malatsi is not the only minister that is said to have received this undue influence from Tony Leon and his company," Diko said.

Leon had categorically denied any wrongdoing, dismissing the allegations as politically motivated and unsupported by evidence.

"In recent days, Resolve Communications has been the subject of a series of allegations advanced by political figures and amplified by political parties," Leon said.

"We do not, and we cannot, direct the decisions of ministers or officials. We have never sought to."

IOL