The DA caucus held a special meeting on Thursday morning, just before council was scheduled to meet and debate on the motion of no confidence in De Lille. (David Harrison/M&G)
The City of Cape Town council will on Thursday table two reports by law firm Bowmans into maladministration in the city.
The council will decide on what recommendations and conclusions it will adopt on the reports.
Outgoing Mayor Patricia de Lille is seeking to discredit the reports, questioning the credibility of the law firm. This has resulted in speculation over whether she will leave her position as planned at the end of the month.
In one report into corruption and maladministration in the City of Cape Town, De Lille is reportedly found to be complicit in irregularities, while in the second report, she is absolved.
On Wednesday, De Lille said she had repeatedly taken issue with the “credibility” of the law firm ever since the inception of the investigation.
“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 on,” De Lille said in a statement.
“On January 5 2018, when council adopted the unedited report, even though I went on the record to say that there were a number of material factual errors upon which Bowmans made ‘highly prejudicial findings’, ‘conclusions’, and ‘recommendations’ (sic),” she added.
De Lille said she could not understand how the same company would come to two different conclusions.
She said her lawyers wrote to Bowmans to seek clarity on the “contradictions” and had requested a response by the end of business on Wednesday.
De Lille said once she had received a response from the firm she would discuss the matter with her lawyers pending the decision of council on Thursday.
She added that she would only be in a position to announce her next step after council decides which report it would adopt.
De Lille is currently serving her notice period, which is expected to come to an end next week. — News24