ANC tells De Lille to pay up or face storm

THE ANC leader in the City of Cape Town‚ Xolani Sotashe‚ has given mayor Patricia de Lille five days to pay back the money used for security upgrades to her private home.

Sotashe said if De Lille did not comply‚ they would bring the masses to picket at the city’s head offices.

For the second day running‚ the party picketed outside De Lille’s house in Pinelands demanding that she pay back more than R702 000.

Sotashe said they were begging De Lille to cough up because “she knows that she stole the money from the taxpayers”.

“If she believes that she has paid … for these renovations‚ she is supposed to prove to everybody. People are still waiting for her to prove us wrong‚” said Sotashe.

He vowed that ANC would “bring Cape Town to the Civic Centre” if De Lille fails to heed the demand.

Sotashe said they had information that the first security assessment at De Lille’s home was done in 2014 and the council had paid for the work done that year.

“Recently she took a decision to renovate her house‚ which affected the work that was done in 2014‚ so what she was supposed to do was to go back to council and seek consent‚” said Sotashe.

He said De Lille was lying when she claimed that she paid for all the subsequent work done on her house.

Sotashe alleged that De Lille had installed more than 13 CCTV cameras in her house, while, in contrast‚ a number of Capetonians living in areas like Langa‚ Gugulethu and Khayelitsha were the ones in real need of this technology.

But council speaker Dirk Smit has slammed Sotashe’s statements as misleading.

“The amount of R700 000 which the ANC is using to create sensation was made available for security measures to be implemented at the mayor’s residence. The full amount was not utilised‚” said Smit.

He said R451 000 had been paid by council for security measures only.

De Lille’s spokeswoman‚ Zara Nicholson‚ referred TimesLIVE to Smit. — DDC