Says the girl’s smuggled in a cat (9)

'says' is the definition.
(announcing is a kind of saying)

'girl's smuggled in a cat' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'a' could be 'an' and 'an' is present in the answer.
'cat' could be 'ounce' (ounce can mean a snow leopard) and 'ounce' is found in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).

'the' acts as a link.

Can you help me to learn more?