On Wednesday morning, the DA’s Federal Executive gave the go-ahead for the DA caucus in Cape Town to table a motion of no confidence in Executive Mayor Patricia de Lille.

The DA city caucus voted in favour of the move, which means it can lodge the motion officially.

But before the morning was out, DA Western Cape leader Bongkinkosi Madikizela had issued a furious statement slamming the ANC for withdrawing its motion of no confidence in the mayor.

“The ANC in the City of Cape Town has, this morning, withdrawn their motion of no confidence against Mayor Patricia de Lille that was to be debated in council today,” he fumed.

“While they had initially claimed that their motion was brought on by numerous allegations of maladministration against the mayor, they have demonstrated today that they would much rather engage in petty party politics than do what is best for the people of Cape Town.

“The DA’s Federal Executive had taken an unprecedented decision to place narrow political interests aside and vote for the motion of no confidence due to the prima facie evidence against the mayor brought to the fore by an independent council investigation and the Auditor General.

“The ANC has been fully appraised of these facts. They are aware that the independent investigation took the view that the mayor had demonstrated behaviour and actions which constituted gross misconduct, gross dereliction of duty and conduct that amounted to deceiving Council.”

Among other things, Madikizela slammed the mayor for “failures of leadership at the first level of assurance, which includes the Executive Mayor, and the subsequent governance breakdown that flows from that”. He also alluded to the storm surrounding suspended transport commissioner Melissa Whitehead, “poor leadership and degeneration of trust”, and “failure (by the mayor), officials to do their jobs and follow the control procedures of the law and regulations, as confirmed in the testimony of the former city manager in the independent investigation mandated by council”.

Further, the furious statement noted “consistent loss of revenue… which was allowed to continue systematically for years” under the mayor’s watch “despite the AG alerting the city to this risk multiple times”. “It is worth noting that the mayor has consistently denied this fact,” he added. Other accusations included irregular expenditure and claims by the mayor that he said were “blatantly false”.

“It is not surprising the ANC have ignored these crucial facts in the interest of politicking,” Madikizela said.

The DA’s motion of no confidence against the mayor should be debated within 10 days of the motion being tabled with the Speaker of Council, Madikizela said.

FedEx publicly announced its approval of the motion of no confidence via social media on Wednesday morning. “The Federal Executive of the Democratic Alliance has authorised the DA caucus in the City of Cape Town to lodge a motion of no confidence in Mayor Patricia de Lille,” the Democratic Alliance posted from its Twitter account.

“This is due to a number of reasons: For the first time in CPT’s history, a council-mandated investigation took the view that the sitting mayor had demonstrated behaviour which constituted gross misconduct, dereliction of duty and conduct that amounted to deceiving council.

“These prima facie findings have been supported by the fact that the Auditor-General has downgraded the city’s audit status from clean to unqualified with conditions.

“The AG’s findings include failures of leadership at the first level of assurance, which includes the executive mayor, and the subsequent governance breakdown that flows from that.”

Madikizela said this decision “was made with the realisation that the findings by the AG and the independent investigation are damning and variant to the principles of DA governments which seek to be free of corruption, efficient and focused on delivery to the people that we serve”.

In addition to the party’s complaints, the mayor has faced criticism over her handling of the water crisis.

She has been stripped of her water-related duties, which were handed over to Deputy Mayor Ian Neilson and Mayco Member Xanthea Limberg, among others.

For her part, she has previously said she will “sue the hell” out of those who claim she stole, but that she would respect the processes of the motion of no confidence.

Madikizela said there had been initial “reservations” about supporting the motions, but that following a meeting with the federal executive, the city caucus had agreed to vote for a motion of no confidence.

He added that while the move was “unprecedented”, the ANC had “correctly (detailed) in its motion many, but not all, of the maladministration that the mayor is responsible for”. The motion had initially been scheduled for debate during a council meeting on Wednesday morning.

At the time of writing, De Lille’s spokesperson Zara Nicholson told Daily Maverick that the mayor would only be available for comment later on Wednesday.

The ANC, for its part, said it was not exploiting the DA’s factional battles. The party’s Thandi Makasi said the ANC would not “allow the DA to abuse the water crisis to settle political scores”.

In earlier council meetings, several ANC MPs had objected to what they described as interference by DA leader Mmusi Maimane – a charge Maimane has strongly denied. At a recent briefing at the Joseph Stone Auditorium in Athlone, he assured members of the public and media that DA leadership would never make themselves guilty of “political interference” in local government. DM

Photo: Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille addresses a media conference on Thursday, 18 January, 2018. Photo: Leila Dougan