The DA must get over being jilted by Patricia de Lille

26 August 2020

The DA is so overcome with animosity against Patricia de Lille that it has lost all perspective.

In seeking to draw political advantage from a National Treasury report on the Beitbridge fence-building project undertaken by the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure, the party is playing into the hands of a political faction in the department that wants things to return to how they were under the previous administration.

Whether or not the DA knows what it’s doing, the effect is the same: It is undermining De Lille’s efforts to stop corruption.

If De Lille had anything to hide about the construction of the fence at Beit Bridge she wouldn’t have asked the Auditor-General to investigate all aspects of the contracting more than four months ago. A preliminary investigation implicated 14 officials in the department. This has been publicly reported.

De Lille’s corruption-busting history is well-known. She opposed apartheid corruption, and as an MP in the first democratic parliament she exposed the arms deal. As Mayor of Cape Town she stopped the DA’s desalination plant deals. For the past 18 months, she has been taking a broom to her Department of Public Works and Infrastructure to clean out rot.

The DA must get over being dumped by De Lille. She resigned on her own terms as mayor of Cape Town nearly two years ago, and no amount of lying or posturing will change that.

Issued by Brett Herron, GOOD Secretary-General, 26 August 2020