Cape Town - Mayor Patricia de Lille said DA chief whip in the City of Cape Town Grant Twigg was talking “absolute rubbish” and must stop lying.
This after Twigg’s statement that the DA applauded the decision by council speaker Dirk Smit “to decline her (De Lille) request because her legal battle is about her own private interests, not the interests of the residents of Cape Town”.
Twigg further wrote that the City’s decision “had nothing to do with the DA, and the DA learnt of the decision only after the speaker made it”.
“No public representative in Cape Town has ever had their legal fees paid by the City, and in her personal fight Patricia de Lille should certainly not be the first,” Twigg added.
“It is wrong, and unjustified for public servants to do wrong, and in the face of enormous evidence against them, to dip into public coffers to pay their legal fees.
‘‘If Patricia de Lille really thought she had a legal case in the public interest, she could have approached the State attorney to handle her case.”
De Lille hit back, saying: “Grant Twigg must stop lying with his misinformation campaign or plain stupidity.
‘‘The issue of my legal costs for City investigations was requested based on the legal systems that I am entitled
to in terms of the Structures Act. I have said that if I am found guilty, then I will pay the legal costs.
“There was a criminal matter with Pieter van Dalen where the speaker approved legal assistance for him in
the case where he used a
firearm.
‘‘The speaker also agreed that the City could cover the legal costs of Councillor
Matthew Kempthorne in another matter,” she said.
De Lille is waiting for a judgment in her case at the Western Cape High Court, where she is challenging
the DA’s decision to end her membership.
She had scored a victory last month when the same court reinstated her as mayor pending the outcome of her application.