De Lille survives as Cape Town mayor but faces DA charges

Patricia de Lille has survived as mayor of Cape Town but she faces DA charges and will have no further role in managing the city’s response to the drought.

Announcing the outcome of Sunday’s federal executive discussion on De Lille’s future‚ party leader Mmusi Maimane said the federal legal council would investigate and prosecute De Lille.

She would be charged with:

- 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 legislation;

- Bringing the party into disrepute;

- Acting in a manner that is unreasonable and detrimental to internal cooperation;

- Unreasonably failing to comply with official decisions of the party.

Maimane said the DA caucus in the City of Cape Town would be asked to pass a resolution preventing the mayor having anything to do with managing the city council’s response to the drought.

He said this was the biggest challenge facing the city‚ and the DA could not afford to have the waters muddied by the row over De Lille’s future.

The resolution would make deputy mayor Ian Neilson and mayoral committee member for water Xanthea Limberg responsible for control of the drought response‚ alongside officials.

Another resolution the caucus would be asked to pass would be to dismantle the centralised system of control De Lille has created and “restore proper decision-making processes”.

This is a developing story.