De Lille won’t reveal plans about future
CAPE TOWN mayor Patricia de Lille was cagey yesterday about whether she would be leaving office at the end of the month.
She was reacting for the first time to the allegations against her in the law firm Bowmans’ report into maladministration and corruption and on reports that she will not be leaving office on Wednesday as agreed with the DA a few months ago.
“That was Rodney Lentit who said I will be not be resigning. I had a conversation with him while still in Amsterdam, where he told me that should they continue with charging me, I should stay on as mayor. That was a statement by Rodney,” she said.
Asked if she will be leaving, De Lille said: “No, no, no, I am following due process. My lawyers have written to Bowmans to seek clarity. Everyone is speaking as if the end of the month is tomorrow. The end of the month is next week Wednesday. I am taking one day at a time.”
Lentit, a close confidant of De Lille, claimed that De Lille was considering his advice not to step down.
Bowmans’ report into corruption and maladministration at the City of Cape Town will be before council today and councillors will deliberate whether criminal charges against De Lille should be laid.
The 2 000-page report into the suspected acts of corruption relate to a tender for electric buses by Chinese manufacturer BYD; and De Lille preventing former city manager Achmat Ebrahim from reporting irregularities with a R40 million tender to procure bus chassis from Volvo.
In a statement, De Lille said: “The initial report issued by Bowmans, on December 29, 2017 made a number of ‘factual findings’ which were inaccurate or simply baseless. I wrote to them on January 3, 2018 requesting them to retract a number of ‘recommendations’ made by themselves on issues which they had not even questioned me.”
She said one report cleared her of any wrongdoing in relation to allegations that she failed to report tender corruption. A second report recommends charges against her on the basis that she allegedly tried to influence Ebrahim.