Cape Town - City Council speaker Dirk Smit is investigating mayor Dan Plato for allegedly abusing his office by distributing food parcels and blankets in Delft to DA supporters of his bid for metro chairperson and using City officials.
Smit confirmed to the Cape Argus that the complaint was received from a community worker who runs a local NGO in Delft but could not divulge any further details.
“The Office of the Speaker views all disciplinary matters as being privileged and confidential in terms of the applicable legislation, as councillors have a right to confidentiality, similar to practice in all disciplinary matters and proceedings. Due to this fact, my office will not be issuing any further comment on this matter at this time,” said Smit.
According to the community worker, who did not want to be named for fear of victimisation of her and her NGO, Plato visited Delft recently and gave DA members blankets and food parcels in his capacity as mayor.
It appears to also be in direct contravention of the party’s Code Of Conduct relating to Internal Elections, which states: “No candidate may use party resources to advance his or her candidature or the candidature of any other member standing for election for any office. Likewise, party resources may not be used to campaign against any member standing for election to any office.”
The allegations surfaced just a few days after a controversial motion of no-confidence was approved by Plato on Monday against sub-council chairperson Helen Carstens. Plato is running for metro chairperson against present incumbent Grant Twigg.
Plato has refuted the allegations and said that no funds from the City were being used for the campaign.
“Campaign funds for an internal party elective process are an internal matter and, therefore, no candidate can reasonably be required to publicly divulge this information. The candidate will, however, fully disclose this information to the party in order to provide assurance that no public funding or resources were used for the campaign, just as the other candidates should be required to do,” said Plato.
Responding to the incident in Delft, he said there has been no transgression of the party’s code of conduct.
“The images are from an event held on September 25, and forms part of the City’s humanitarian relief which we undertook from the beginning of the lockdown when national government failed to help the people of Cape Town. We have been consistent in the activity over the last six months, visiting several areas in the city to provide assistance where needed, and the mayor intends to continue to provide this assistance to communities until the end of the lockdown.
“The event in question was attended by a variety of persons from the community, with some wearing clothing indicating support for different political parties. There are photos of the event available that support this statement and show the true intent of the event,” Plato said.
Twigg said that a few of his DA colleagues had raised concerns about the incident.
“I did not know there was a complaint but there are colleagues who have raised this matter and if this is before the Speaker it's an internal matter that must be investigated.”
DA provincial leader Bonginkosi Madikizela said: “This matter has been brought to our attention and as the leadership we have asked the mayor to submit a written response whether party resources were used for the campaign or not.”
Madikizela said he had no problem with candidates canvassing for support. “It’s the nature of congresses, but we must just make sure that internal party rules are adhered to,” he said.
Cape Argus