The Democratic Alliance’s newly nominated candidate for mayor of Cape Town, Patricia De Lille, was not surprised when she heard that government spokesperson Jimmy Manyi had said there was an “oversupply” of coloured people in the Western Cape.
“It was not the first time I heard it, you know,” she told the Mail & Guardian. “I was at a conference in September 2010 and I was standing in for Helen Zille. I was just a couple of days in the new portfolio and the Black Management Forum had a conference in Cape Town,” she said, her ire clearly rising.
“Manyi made the same statements there. He said that the demography must be reflected in any job situation. If there are 80% black people in the country then that should be reflected, as it should if there was 2% white or 3% coloured. He actually accrued proportional percentage numbers.”
Looking chic in a tailored suit, De Lille sipped rooibos tea as she recalled how she had challenged Manyi at the conference. “I said show me where in the Constitution it says this. Show me any piece of legislation that states this. In fact, the Equity Act says ‘redress the imbalances of the past’. I said to him: ‘You are talking nonsense.'”
‘Spirit of the constitution’
The Constitution and its preamble state that we must build diversity and build unity, De Lille said. “So it is totally out of line with the spirit of the Constitution. “But the second point, which the man did not [know] or conveniently ignored, was the history of the Western Cape.
You know it was part of the previous apartheid regime racist policy. Indians were not allowed to go into the Orange Free State, they put all the black people into Soweto, they made the Western Cape a coloured preferential area.
“It is only a fool who can think that, after 16 years of democracy, things must now have changed so drastically that there is integration. In fact, the only people that have integrated have been the black diamonds,” she said.
Manyi did not return the M&G‘s calls or SMSes but appeared undeterred this week by the rumpus over his statements, telling Parliament that Indians and whites were “over-represented” in the senior management structures of the Government Communication and Information System, of which he is the chief executive officer. But De Lille said the DA would not trade on race.
“We will certainly not use that issue to gain votes,” she said. “We are going to campaign on the basis of what we can deliver and have delivered in the past.”
Taking a break after the press conference at which it was announced that she was running for mayor, De Lille said she would have to increase her vitamin intake for the campaign trail – she loves nothing more than leaving the office to go out to meet people.
“The first thing we need to ensure is that we are delivering quality services to all the people of Cape Town. A lot of services have been delivered already,” she said.
l The Human Rights Commission announced this week it would investigate a complaint of hate speech against Manyi. The commission’s chairperson, Lawrence Mushwana, said the organisation’s Durban office had received an official complaint on Tuesday. He did not yet know who had laid the complaint.