UDM STRIKES BACK AT DA

Apology demanded for ‘dubious campaign’ to unseat ex-deputy mayor

UDM leader Bantu Holomisa has lashed out at DA leader Mmusi Maimane, demanding an apology in relation to the draft Price-waterhouseCoopers (PwC) report which painted a picture of mayhem and patronage in the Nelson Mandela Bay public health department.

Holomisa, in a statement yesterday, accused the DA of masterminding a dubious campaign to unseat former deputy mayor Mongameli Bobani under false pretences.

Bobani was ousted as deputy mayor on August 24. He has since launched a bid to be reinstated, with the matter set to be heard in the Port Elizabeth High Court next Tuesday.

The draft report by auditing firm PwC looked into the public health department while Bobani was at the helm.

It paints a picture of a department where rules were allegedly broken and workers hired through UDM channels while officials who dared ask questions were targeted or threatened.

“The DA has very publicly, consciously and concertedly undermined one of its coalition partners,” Holomisa said.

“You had relied on an embargoed PwC ‘draft report’, which we certainly would not have seen had we not demanded a copy at a meeting of coalition partners on 22 August.

“The fecklessness of the ‘draft report’ forced you to keep it secret, but it did not preclude you from abusing it.”

Holomisa said the DA and its other coalition partners had publicly criticised him and said he condoned corruption.

“The DA based its whole concerted campaign to get rid of Bobani, and besmirching the good name of the UDM, on a document in which PwC had not expressed an opinion and it had been clear that the document was preliminary.”

Holomisa said it was suspicious and abnormal that Bobani, the coalition partners and the council had been kept in the dark while Maimane was given the report personally.

“Why were you, as a national leader of a political party, privy to this information at all? Is this a ‘municipality document’ or a ‘DA document’?

“What were/are your and the DA’s motives in keeping this ‘draft report’ to yourselves and using the information to attack the UDM?”

Holomisa said the DA had failed to honour the co-governance they had and instead had accused Bobani of voting with the ANC.

“I submit that you and your colleagues have actively misled the public on this matter. The UDM would like to see you publicly and unreservedly withdraw your unsubstantiated accusations and apologise to me, to Bobani and to the UDM,” Holomisa said.

But DA federal chairman James Selfe said there was nothing to apologise for.

“Mr Holomisa and his party have started a legal challenge and we will be contesting the challenge in court and to say anything about it at this stage would be premature,” Selfe said.

“We have addressed everything that Holomisa has specified in our answering papers. I don’t know what more there is to say,” Selfe said.

Efforts to contact Maimane were unsuccessful.