Patricia de Lille told Radio 702 on Monday that residents who continued to violate restrictions would face penalties.
On Wednesday morning, the Democratic Alliance announced that it would move ahead with a vote of no confidence against City of Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille, without informing her.
According to De Lille, on January 14 2018 the party’s federal executive decided not to proceed with a motion of no confidence in her until the conclusion of the investigations of intimidation, criminality and misconduct among the city’s senior officials by the federal legal commission (FLC) and the City of Cape Town.
At the same meeting, the DA caucus voted strongly in favour of a motion to remove the mayor from office when the party decided by 84 to 59 votes that it had lost confidence in De Lille.
However, De Lille was not removed from office. Instead, she was asked to “take ultimate political responsibility”, because the DA’s Federal Executive Council had decided not to suspend her as mayor out of respect for due process and De Lille’s rights.
The meeting led to her remaining in the position of mayor, but she would no longer handle Cape Town’s water crisis nor attend party activities. The task of preparing for the city’s Day Zero was deferred to deputy mayor Ian Neilson and Mayoral Committee member for water, informal settlements and waste services, Councillor Xanthea Limberg.
The proposal for a vote of no confidence in De Lille was today sent to the DA’s federal executive. De Lille said she had not yet heard from the federal executive on their about turn on their decision not to suspend her.
READ MORE: DA to go ahead with motion of no confidence in De Lille without the ANC
“There seems to be great haste to remove me as the executive mayor. The desperation to replace me reached new heights today,” said De Lille.
She added that the motion of no confidence tabled this morning was “a serious mockery of the values that the DA purports to stand for, which are fairness, freedom and opportunity”.
De Lille also hit back at Bonginkosi Madikizela, the DA Western Cape leader, who had said the party could not “impose a leader to the caucus who has clearly lost the confidence of the caucus” and further accused her of “failures of leadership”.
Madikizela further claimed that De Lille’s mismanagement as mayor of the city had led to a “consistent loss of revenue” over a number of years.
De Lille said his comments were “a blatant attempt to attack me publicly and undermine the party’s process” as the allegations from the Steenhuisen report remain “untested”.
She added that Madikizela’s was attempting to “unseat” her from her democratically elected position. Furthermore, she said this is not the first time the City of Cape Town regressed from a clean audit to an unqualified audit with findings. But, took a dig at Madikizela’s governance of the Western Cape when she stated that the Western Cape Human Settlements Department had also regressed from a clean audit.
This is not the first time that De Lille has accused the DA of treating her unfairly and failing to follow due process.
“I cannot allow my name to be tarnished on a daily basis while being unfairly gagged when all other party members are able to freely speak on these matters while processes are underway,” De Lille said.
Read her full statement below: