DA leader Mmusi Maimane is renting a privately-owned house and not living in the parliamentary village because of security risks, his spokesperson Solly Malatsi said on Sunday. 

“[A]s highlighted in the very same story your questions emerge from, his departure from the parliamentary residence followed a series of security risk and threats to his family here,” said Malatsi.

This follows a report in City Press that Maimane had declared a R4m house in the Cape Town suburb of Claremont in a parliamentary register, despite the home never belonging to him. 

In the report, Maimane apparently did an about-turn and said he rented the house from a friend, identified in the story as business person Wessel Jacobs. 

Maimane had declared that house, as well as a house in Weltevredenpark in Roodepoort, Gauteng, but the deeds office reportedly stated that he only owned the Roodepoort property. 

Maimaine would not reveal how much rent his friend charged, and in follow-up questions on Sunday, Malatsi repeated an earlier response that the rental was at “market value”. 

He said the house was declared as a rented property.