De Lille slammed for team changes

Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille. File photo: Henk Kruger

Cape Town Mayor Patricia de Lille. File photo: Henk Kruger

Published Jan 27, 2015

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Cape Town - Mayor Patricia de Lille has reshuffled her top political team just days before the first full council meeting of the year, making changes to the health and human settlements portfolios.

Benedicta van Minnen, ward councillor for the Helderberg, is the new mayoral committee member for human settlements, with immediate effect, while Siyabulela Mamkeli will take over her portfolio as the mayoral committee member for health.

Van Minnen takes over from Lungiswa James, while Mamkeli moved into the position formerly held by Tandeka Gqada.

“Both portfolios are essential components of building an inclusive and caring city. From time to time, it is healthy for governments to refresh their leadership structures with small changes in the interests of better executing their mandate,” she said.

And while De Lille has ascribed the changes to a natural reorganisation of her leadership team to “better achieve” the city’s goals, the ANC slammed the reshuffle, saying that Mamkeli was being redeployed because of his poor performance. Human Settlements is a critical portfolio, given the substantial housing waiting list backlog.

“If we had to rate him, he would get zero out of 10 (for performance),” said Xolani Sotashe, ANC chief whip.

 

De Lille said Van Minnen’s keen understanding of community needs in her health portfolio would put her in good stead to create integrated communities in her work with human settlements.

Cape Argus

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