There are scandals that fade because they were built on noise. And then there are scandals that refuse to die because they were built on documents, procurement records, affidavits, court dockets, and the hard residue of institutional decisions.

The Paul Scheepers saga and his relationship with the DA’s Helen Zille is the second kind.

I asked the questions in 2015 when Helen Zille was Premier of the Western Cape and the DA wanted the public to swallow a single line: “It was just debugging.” I asked because the situation was plainly abnormal: a DA-run provincial government had used public funds to contract a private entity linked to a serving SAPS Crime Intelligence officer for a sensitive, security-adjacent service in the heart of the provincial executive environment. That should have triggered maximum transparency and independent review. It was covered up.

Instead, it triggered what the DA always reaches for when it feels threatened: messaging, dismissive, deflection, legalism, double standards, hypocrisy and political arrogance.

Now, in 2026, the story returns with a harder edge. Scheepers has been convicted in what the NPA itself described as a landmark prosecution involving fraud, money laundering, and contraventions linked to PSIRA and RICA-related surveillance equipment compliance, including unlawful possession of a “grabber/locator” device without ministerial exemption, and the concealment of proceeds through multiple accounts. Sentencing is set down for April 2026.

So the DA’s problem is no longer a historical debate about language. It is a live governance credibility crisis: You contracted into a grey zone.You insisted denial and spin were closure.

Your contractor is now convicted in a case rooted in the very risks the public warned about.

You don’t need the word “spy” to describe this. You need the word accountability.

The 2010 contract: what the DA wants you to forget

In May 2010, under a DA-led Western Cape government, a private entity associated EAGLE EYE with Paul Scheepers was contracted to “debug” phones in the provincial executive environment. Contemporaneous reporting put the cost at around R115,800 and described the procurement method as “limited” the kind of term that should immediately force the following questions into the open:

• Limited procurement on what legal basis? Who gave the political instruction to execute administratively?
• Deviation approved by whom?
• What risk assessment was done?
• Why not a transparent competitive process for a high-risk service?
• What safeguards were built into the scope?

This was not stationery. This was not catering. This was executive communications security one of the most sensitive domains in any state, and one of the easiest to abuse when boundaries are weak.

That is why, when the story surfaced publicly in 2015, the DA’s preferred narrative “just debugging” was never enough. “Debugging” is not a morally neutral service when it involves leaders’ devices, communications pathways, and sensitive state information.

My 2015 questions were not ‘party politics’ they were constitutional governance

When I spoke then, as ANC Western Cape provincial secretary, I was not trying to score a headline. I was doing what opposition is supposed to do in a democracy: forcing disclosure where the state prefers secrecy.

My questions were simple, direct, and still unanswered today:

1. Why did the Western Cape government hire a serving Crime Intelligence officer (through his private entity) for this work?
2. On what grounds was this decision made, and who approved it?
3. Why was there no open, competitive tender process for a high-risk service?
4. What exactly was the scope and what prevented scope creep into unlawful interception?
5. Which parts of government were involved and did any work extend beyond the executive phones?
6. What safeguards protected political actors, journalists, officials, and ordinary residents from abuse?
7. Why did Premier Zille treat scrutiny as an attack rather than convene an independent inquiry and publish the record?

Those questions were not answered with documents. They were answered with posture: deny, ridicule, reframe, move on.

That posture is the real scandal because in a constitutional democracy, the correct response to a sensitive security-adjacent contract is not theatre. It is radical transparency.

2026: the convictions that make Zille’s old posture indefensible

Fast forward to 2026. After an 11-year prosecution trail, Scheepers is convicted of multiple offences including fraud, money laundering, and contraventions tied to PSIRA and RICA-linked equipment compliance. The NPA describes key aspects as firsts of their kind.

This is what the convictions do: they confirm that the central figure in this controversy was operating in a space that touches the gravest constitutional sensitivities unlawful private investigative activity, unlawful surveillance-related conduct, and illicit financial concealment.

Again: I am not claiming the 2010 provincial work itself has been proven unlawful in court. I do not need to. The standard of governance does not wait for a conviction to demand accountability.

The standard of governance is this:

If you contracted a sensitive service into the executive environment, show the safeguards. If you cannot show them, you have already failed.

‘Just debugging’ is not a defence, it is a demand for evidence

The DA’s weakness is not what it admits. It’s what it refuses to publish.

If it was “just debugging,” then the DA should release the full procurement and governance record:

• the contract and scope of work;
• the deliverables and technical limitations;
• chain-of-custody rules for devices;
• audit logs and record-keeping requirements;
• data handling and destruction provisions;
• conflict-of-interest screening and declarations;
• PSIRA/RICA compliance checks and legal opinions;
• deviation/limited procurement motivation and approvals;
• oversight and accountability lines.

This is not a request for gossip. It is a request for the file.

In any credible governance culture, the file is the answer. Not the slogan.

The bigger truth: the DA normalised ‘grey capability’ and Cape Town is living with the consequences

The Scheepers episode was never only about a contract. It was about a DA governing style: building capability at the edge of oversight, defending it politically, and treating scrutiny as illegitimate until courts or raids force transparency.

Look at where Cape Town is now: repeated public controversies around investigative units, contested mandates, raids, allegations of tender corruption, whistleblowers demanding independent audits, and politicians calling for SIU involvement. The DA waves “clean audits” as a shield, as if financial compliance automatically proves procurement integrity, ethical culture, and institutional restraint.

It does not.

A clean audit is not a clean city. It is not a clean procurement culture. It is certainly not a clean governance ethos when secrecy and parallel capability become normal.

And that is the connecting line the DA does not want discussed:

In 2010, the DA normalised the idea that you can outsource sensitive security-adjacent functions into government via limited procurement and then shut down scrutiny with word games. In 2026, Cape Town and the Western Cape are still battling the consequences of governance by deflection.

Zille wants to posture as a national saviour but she never cleaned her own house

Helen Zille now wants to present herself as a corrective force in national politics the experienced administrator, the guardian of clean governance, the adult in the room.

But you cannot posture as the guardian of accountability while carrying unanswered questions of this magnitude questions that go to privacy, civil liberties, procurement integrity, and the boundary between state power and private capability.

You cannot ridicule scrutiny in 2015 and then demand trust in 2026.

You cannot preach “rule of law” while refusing to publish the records that would allow the public to assess whether your government acted lawfully and ethically in a high-risk area.

This is why I use the phrase: the story the DA cannot wish away. Because it is not built on rumour. It is built on an undeniable fact pattern:

• The contract existed.
• It was sensitive.
• It involved access to executive communications environments.
• It was procured through a method described as “limited.”
• The figure at the centre has now been convicted in a landmark matter involving unlawful private surveillance-related contraventions and money laundering.

That combination demands answers, not vibes.

The DA must answer directly, in documents

So I am asking again, more directly than I asked in 2015:

Who initiated and approved the 2010 “debugging” procurement, and under what deviation/limited procurement justification?

1. What vetting was done on the supplier and principal individuals including conflict-of-interest and legal compliance checks?
2. What exactly was the scope of work, and what technical/contractual safeguards prevented unlawful interception or monitoring?
3. What were the data handling rules access controls, logs, retention, destruction and who audited compliance?
4. Was the contract ever terminated? If so, when, why, and where is the record? If not, why not?
5. Why did Premier Zille choose denial and ridicule instead of convening an independent inquiry and publishing the file?
6. What is the DA’s current policy in the province and in the City on security-adjacent outsourcing and parallel investigative capability, and what safeguards now exist to prevent abuse?

These questions cannot be answered with another press statement. They can only be answered with documents.

The closing truth

This is not about ANC versus DA. This is about whether a DA-run government normalised grey surveillance relationships and whether Helen Zille used certainty and spin to shut down scrutiny rather than welcome independent review.

The Scheepers convictions have now stripped the DA of its favourite escape route: pretending the risk was imaginary.

The risk was real. The boundary was blurred. The public interest was obvious. And the records must come out.

If the DA truly believes its conduct was beyond reproach, then it should stop hiding behind slogans and publish the file so that the people of the Western Cape, and the country, can judge whether this was governance… or a dangerous flirtation with the grey zone.

Because democratic legitimacy is not something you announce.

It is something you prove.

* Faiez Jacobs is a former Member of Parliament, founder of The Transcendence Group, Capetonian, Activist, and Servant of the People.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media. 

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