DA welcomes the resignation of Patricia De Lille as the Mayor of Cape Town
31 October 2018
The Democratic Alliance (DA) welcomes the resignation of Patricia De Lille as the Mayor of the City of Cape Town and that she stuck to the agreement to resign.
After a difficult and protracted journey, we will now finally put this matter behind us and focus purely on the people of Cape Town, whom we are committed to serve.
Despite continuous vilification and insults from the outgoing mayor, the DA would like to take the opportunity to wish her well in her future endeavours.
The DA also notes Ms De Lille’s announcement that she has approached the Western Cape High Court to have the independent Bowmas Gilfillan report set aside (an investigation for which De Lille herself voted in favour of). It is, however, crucial to remember that this is an independent council report, which found her guilty of systematically breaking down good governance in the City of Cape Town. She did so by actively shielding and defending officials allegedly guilty of irregularities in relation to the BYD bus tender (where processes were fraudulently manipulated to illegally favour one bus provider) and the Volvo chassis matter (where the mayor chose to ignore and shield consequential action for irregular payment of R50 million).
Ms De Lille likes to try and confuse the public, saying repeatedly there is an irreconcilable contradiction between the two reports. This is a diversion – both reports find a pattern of interference and manipulation of governance processes by Ms De Lille.
As was independently found, her failure to bring the matter to the attention of Council was a failure of her duties as Mayor in respect of the Municipal Systems Disciplinary Regulations 5 (1) and (2), as well as Regulation 3(2) of the Financial Misconduct Regulations.
This is why the Speaker of Council yesterday laid criminal charges against Ms De Lille for contravening s119 of the Municipal systems Act which states:
“119(1) A councilor who attempts to influence the municipal manager or any other staff member or an agent of a municipality not to enforce an obligation in terms of this Act, any other applicable legislation or any by-law or decision of the council of the municipality, is guilty of an offences and on conviction liable to a fine or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding two yea
Any dispute Patricia de Lille may have about these Council processes is thus purely a matter between the City and the outgoing Mayor. However, it needs to be stated unambiguously that there was no absolutely no political interference of any kind in what was always an independent Council led process. Any attempt to claim otherwise is also untrue.
As a party we are proud that we stand almost alone in holding our public representatives to the highest possible standard of conduct – we hold everyone in the DA accountable for their actions, no matter their popularity, or history. It is clear that people have long forgotten what political accountability looks like in practise. The DA had no choice to hold Ms De Lille accountable, and we will never apologise for doing so.
The Mayor-elect of Cape Town, Dan Plato will now soon work to fix the damage done to governance systems in the City of Cape Town, restore the highest level of service delivery, and most especially focus on leading the fight against crime and gangsterism, unemployment and improving services in all parts of the City. As De Lille herself confirmed, the Party’s manifesto is being executed in the City’s IDP and we will make sure that Cape Town goes back to being the shining light in South Africa – a bastion of clean, accountable and effective government.
Issued by Natasha Mazzone, DA Deputy Chairperson of Federal Council, 31 October 2018
