The Mayor of Cape Town Patricia de Lille responded to recent allegations leveled against her. She says she is in support of a full investigation in order to get to the bottom of the matter.
It emerged, on Wednesday, that the DA's executive in the Western Cape wants De Lille removed from her current position as mayor.
Allegations against De Lille are contained in a report by independent investigators from Bowman Gilfillan Attorneys which found that De Lille may be guilty of gross misconduct.
She is accused of allegedly advising City Manager Achmat Ebrahim to refrain from reporting allegations of misconduct to the City Council. These allegations allegedly involved irregular expenditure in relation to payments made to Volvo and Scania by Melissa Whitehead, the commissioner of the transport and urban development authority.
Allegations need to be tested. We live in a country where there is a Rule of Law and the Constitution is supreme.
— Patricia de Lille, Mayor at City of Cape Town
De Lille says that she has pointed out that there were factual errors in the Bowman Gilfillan report that needs to be corrected.
She wrote a letter twice requesting Bowman to correct those errors and provided them with proof.
According to de Lille, the report states that she admitted to giving the leader of the DA a disc that contains the City of Cape Town's forensic report, which she insists is untrue.
She says she gave investigators a letter from the leader of the DA clearly stating that he was not given the disc in question by De Lille.
I just feel it is unreasonable that a report with those factual errors glaringly there, that Council has now accepted that as facts.
— Patricia de Lille, Mayor at City of Cape Town
She says in allegations involving Whitehead, she was never given an opportunity to respond. She believes this is unfair to her because the allegations are based on hearsay.
They are making allegations that people said this about the Mayor but they have never given me an opportunity to respond. I want an investigation to go on as soon as possible, let's test these allegations...
— Patricia de Lille, Mayor at City of Cape Town
To hear more on this conversation with the Mayor of Cape Town Patricia de Lille, listen below: