Picture: Polokwane Observer
Vhembe district municipality mayor Florence Radzilani recorded Limpopo premier Stan Mathabatha declaring his love for her on the advice of her husband, a pastor who says he released the tape and is believed to have played it to his congregation at church, Sunday World reports.
The recording has since gone viral on social media.
Mathabatha’s office first argued that the recording was faked, but the premier has since admitted it’s his voice.
But Mathabatha’s lawyers claim the recordings were made to embarrass him and silence him, as he was allegedly in the process of taking action against her over her role in the VBS Bank scandal.
Radzilani was implicated in the scandal, allegedly receiving R300,000 from the bank after her municipality made a deposit of R300 million.
In the recording, Radzilani says “I just want to find out when did this thing start with you.”
READ MORE: Limpopo’s Mathabatha comes under fire from EFF, ANC councillor
The person who has since confirmed to be Mathabatha then replies: “For quite sometime, is just that I was trying and trying to suppress but I realised I can’t continue like this. Why don’t you take this thing out and let’s see what will happen given a chance.””All that time I respect you as a family man and I’m also married to a pastor,” was Radzilani’s response.
Lindelani Sigogo, acting for the premier, failed in his attempts to obtain an interdict preventing City Press and Sunday World from reporting on the tape, on the grounds that the tapes are an invasion of Mathabatha’s privacy.
In her affidavit, Radzilani says she was “surprised when I arrived in his hotel room after closing the door, he grabbed me and he said the two of us we are in love. He further stated that my body has all the ingredients he wants from a woman. And I pleaded with him not to do that to me and he said I’m behaving like an old fashioned lady.”
Radzilani continues that she told her husband Stanley about the incident, and he advised that she record Mathabatha.
Mathabatha’s affidavit, meanwhile, accuses Radzilani of “tricking” him into the phone conversation in which he declared his love and attraction towards her.
His lawyers’ argued that she was the one who initiated the topic and say what is revealed in the tape is “not wrong but shameful.”
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