Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille says she is looking forward to defending herself against the allegations against her, after the DA formally charged her with bringing the party into disrepute on Sunday, Eyewitness News reported.
De Lille was asked to give the DA reasons why she should not resign as Cape Town mayor after a subcommittee, headed by DA Parliamentary whip John Steenhuisen, found that the DA needed to investigate tension in the City of Cape Town's management.
This report, plus another put together by law firm Bowman Gilfillan, into allegations of corruption at the municipality, were due to be discussed along with De Lille's fate at a DA federal executive (Fedex) meeting on Sunday.
There were allegations that De Lille covered up corruption committed by officials.
According to EWN, De Lille is also in hot water over allegations that key city officials were irregularly appointed.
De Lille will return to work on Monday.
According to Business Day, she was also charged with misconduct. The paper also reported that Fedex has recommended that De Lille no longer be in charge of the City's response to the water crisis.
De Lille reportedly said that while she welcomed the decision to charge her, she was disappointed that she had already been stripped of some of her powers before the disciplinary process had been concluded.
"All that I was asking for was a fair chance to clear my name from the aspersions which were cast on my character. I have dedicated my life to fighting corruption, as history shows, and therefore I also welcome that the corruption charges or allegations are no longer being mentioned by the DA, she said.
TimesLive reported that the other charges against De Lille include:
- Acting in a manner that has impacted negatively on the party;
- Failing to carry out her duties to the standard required by the party and by legislation;
- Bringing the party into disrepute;
- Acting in a manner that is unreasonable and detrimental to internal co-operation; and
- Unreasonably failing to comply with official decisions of the party.
DA Fedex chairman James Selfe told TimesLive that the timing of the crisis, a year away from the 2019 elections, was unfortunate.
"A public spat of this nature is never good for a party. It is a question not so much of what damage was caused‚ it is a question of what would have happened if we didn't deal with it and didn't deal with it openly and transparently‚" he said.
"We are not in the business of sweeping this sort of thing under the carpet."