The Democratic Alliance insists that Cape Town Mayor, Patricia De Lille should pay her own costs in her ongoing court battle with the party, even though an appeals committee has decided that the council should pay.
De Lille requested legal assistance from the city, which Council Speaker Dirk Smit refused. However, his decision was overturned by the council’s appeals committee.
DA chief whip in the council, Grant Twigg, has applauded the Speaker’s decision.
“We think that any person that wants to deal with a personal issues, and in this case Patricia De Lille with the party, needs to foot their own bills. Because you know in the city of Cape Town, there’s a lot of councillors and 28 000 employees in the City of Cape Town. If you allow one to actually use the rate payers money for their personal battles. Then it should actually apply for all and the law doesn’t allow for that.”
De Lille says she is willing pay her own legal costs, but only if she is found guilty of a series of maladministration charges that the party is bringing against her.
“What it means now is that the City manager has now instructed the city’s legal department to get me some legal assistance and that is in the process of happening right now.”
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