The DA has warned that the R400-million still-to-be-constructed Dreamworld Film City near Khayelitsha, headed by film producer Anant Singh, "is not going to happen" because of a lack of funding.
But Premier Ebrahim Rasool hit back, saying DA MP Robin Carlisle had used "defamatory and frazzled" language to make an assortment of allegations that did great harm to the film industry in the province.
Singh also reacted on Monday saying the project is on track.
Carlisle said that Singh had failed to secure funding for the film studio and intended taking film business and jobs out of Cape Town to Durban, following his successful bid to build a studio in eThekwini, Durban North Beach.
Saying Rasool had desperately tried to cover up "what increasingly appears to be an Anant Singh double-cross", Carlisle urged the premier, who was instrumental in awarding the bid to Singh, to "tell the truth about Dreamworld".
Said Rasool: "The Durban film studio proposal was explicitly discussed in the second interview of Dreamworld with the Adjudication Panel, including the site details and that it would have one or two sound stages. The scale and niche nature of this studio were not considered a risk factor to the Western Cape."
"I cannot have been misled on the funding of the film studio. I responded on this in the Provincial Legislature and I have no doubt that Singh and Dreamworld will secure all necessary funding."
Regarding the speed of the development, Rasool said: "It was clear that we could have accepted the Culemborg site proposal and have had a film studio very quickly, or waited longer to have a world-class film studio for long-term sustainable sector development integrated into broader development objectives."
The ongoing amount of film activity, despite the absence of a studio, meant the Cape Town industry remained healthy.
Rasool said Carlisle's concern did not lie with the film industry in which his party was never really interested "despite their years in government and in control of economic development in the Western Cape".
"Mr Carlisle's apparent problem is that he does not believe that Macassar, Khayelitsha and Mitchell's Plain is the right area for the development. We are not going to apologise for selecting Vergenoegd. It lies within a presidential development node, it provides easy access to locations, it has clear vistas and can help to address poverty and redress the imbalances of apartheid planning."
Rasool said the development of Vergenoegd is on schedule, with construction beginning in the middle of 2005.
He added that it was only Carlisle and losing bidder Anton Nel who had "tried to scare away the international film industry from Cape Town by declaring Vergenoegd as the wrong site and undermining the future of the industry".
"If my suspicions are true, Mr Carlisle is abusing parliamentary process and his elected office to the detriment of the film industry in the Western Cape," Rasool said.
Singh outlined the progress of the studio, saying Dreamworld had, since February, incurred substantial costs and made investments in the project every day.
He said the Dreamworld Film Studios site had been purchased by Dreamworld and portions had already been cleared of alien vegetation.
He said the DA's claim that the provincial and local government had been unaware of his company Videovision Entertainment's development of studios in Durban, was inaccurate.