Ebrahim Rasool has broken his silence over his recall as Western Cape premier in the wake of claims by his successor, Helen Zille, that his ANC comrades leaked information on his government to the DA.

He told the Cape Argus yesterday that he hoped the ANC would be as "determined" in dealing with those comrades as it had been with him.

Rasool said it was significant that Zille's "admission" came days after President Jacob Zuma slammed the ANC's failure in the province and its inability to retain power.

"If Zuma wanted an answer on what went wrong in the Western Cape, this is the answer," he said.

"There were those in the ANC, and now we've got the names and a few others, who worked with the DA to undermine the government I led.

"I hope the ANC and everyone in the country takes note of this... and the humiliation I had to take regarding the ad hoc committee and my recall."

Rasool was sacked by the ANC last July, nine months before his term ended.

DA leader Zille claimed in the provincial legislature this week that former provincial chairman Mcebisi Skwatsha and ANC chief whip Max Ozinsky had given information to her party to undermine Rasool.

In 2007, an investigation against Rasool was launched after the DA brought a motion which was supported by a group within the ANC.

The provincial legislature set up an ad hoc committee to investigate whether Rasool had misled the legislature in statements about the extra money spent on security improvements to the home of then community safety MEC Leonard Ramatlakane. He was found to have lied three times and he later apologised to the House.

"It explains a lot of things: the stopping of the anti-drug programme, building of the Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain hospitals because we didn't sell Somerset Hospital, and the killing of the sale of the Somerset Hospital."

Rasool said these were all the results of a collaboration by Skwatsha, Ozinsky and the DA, and that Zille had confirmed that successful delivery programmes of a government that "I led were deliberately stopped by people in ANC".

"I'm very relieved, very happy," Rasool said yesterday.

"It is criminal in that the whole thing gave the government of the Western Cape to the DA.

"It says to me that someone wanted to bring me down so badly, more than the ANC retaining the Western Cape. I hope that the ANC will be as determined with them as it was with me."

Meanwhile, the SACP in the province is calling for the ANC to investigate Zille's allegations.

SACP provincial secretary Khaya Magaxa said that if Zille's claims were true, then the procedure followed by "these comrades is questionable".

The ANC in the provincial legislature rejected Zille's claims.

"Zille's statement came after she was unable to respond to ANC questions in the provincial legislature on Tuesday. Painted into a corner on the contradiction between what DA members had told the legislature about the Social Transformation Programme and her plans to revive the programme, Zille made this wild statement," the party said.

The ANC proposed that a committee be set up to investigate whether Zille was misleading the legislature.

"The ANC will push that the motion be adopted in the next sitting on Tuesday."

Lynne Brown, leader of the ANC in the legislature, said parliamentary rules expressly prohibited and provided sanction for any member who misled the House.

"DA members of the legislature have made contradictory statements on this matter. In addition, the integrity of members of the legislature has been impinged. That is why, as a matter of principle, it is imperative that all parties in the legislature support the ANC motion to establish an ad-hoc committee to establish the facts."

Brown's remark about "contradictory statements" alludes to a comment Transport and Public Works MEC Robin Carlisle made to the Weekend Argus in April, when he said he took serious exception to accusations that he had received documents from the ANC.