Cape Town mayor Helen Zille and Western Cape provincial minister of local government Richard Dyantyi will meet face to face on Wednesday to discuss Dyanti’s plan to strip Zille of her power.
The meeting has been arranged by Minister of Provincial and Local Government Sydney Mufamadi, who will also attend.
It will take place in his parliamentary offices.
Announcing the meeting last week, Mufamadi said the aim was to promote a ”meeting of minds” and find a ”harmonious solution” to the problem.
Zille has accused Dyantyi of an unconstitutional power grab after he announced his intention to change Cape Town’s system of government from the current mayoral committee, in which Zille holds executive power, to an executive committee system on which Dyanti’s African National Congress (ANC) would have strong representation.
Zille’s spokesperson Robert Macdonald confirmed Zille would attend Wednesday’s meeting, which he said he understood would be closed to the media.
Zille, her Democratic Alliance (DA) colleagues on the council, and the DA’s six partners in the city government on Tuesday boycotted a consultative meeting arranged by Dyantyi in a city hotel.
Only the ANC and the Independent Democrats (ID) attended.
The ID accused Zille of arrogance and contempt for her decision not to attend the meeting. The claim came from ID caucus leader Simon Grindrod, in an address to Dyantyi at the meeting.
Grindrod, whose party leader Patricia de Lille on Sunday apologised for backing an ANC mayor earlier this year and declared that her party would oppose Dyantyi’s move, said the ID believed it was very important to hear the minister’s position ”first hand”.
”The DA and their coalition partners have shown great arrogance and contempt in not attending as requested,” he said.
”On the one hand, Helen Zille complains that her democratically elected position is not being recognised. In the same breath she openly disrespects the office of a provincial minister.”
He also said the DA decision to stick to the executive mayoral system despite promising in their local government election manifesto to abolish it ”stinks to the high heavens of hypocrisy”.
The ID wanted an executive committee system — as in Dyantyi’s proposal — but not under these circumstances.
The ID would continue to fight for an executive committee through the ballot box, and not through the courts. — Sapa