Dagada cuts his losses after resigning from DA

Dagada has handed in his resignation letter to the DA’s Federal Executive, claiming the party wanted to end his political career.

Dr Rabelani Dagada has resigned from both the DA and the City of Johannesburg on 11 July after his initial removal as Finance MMC by Executive Mayor Herman Mashaba in January.

The City of Johannesburg’s former Finance MMC and Democratic Alliance (DA) member has resigned as a councillor and party member, Randburg Sun reports.

He submitted his resignation to the DA’s Federal Executive chairperson James Selfe on Wednesday before announcing it today.

He was removed as MMC by Executive Mayor Herman Mashaba on January 15, who shortly thereafter issued a statement alleging corruption, nepotism, price-fixing and the victimisation of some City officials on the part of Dagada.

More than a month later, Dagada fired back in a statement. The former MMC alleged that since July last year, there had been unrelenting efforts by the mayor to remove him from the Mayoral Committee.

“As far as I can remember, my expulsion on Monday, 15 January 2018 was the fifth and only successful attempt to remove me from the Mayoral Committee,” he said.

But Mashaba remained adamant that Dagada had breached the City’s code of conduct by not declaring his interests and, subsequently, conflicts of interest with individuals closely associated with him.

Since then, Dagada has often been spotted in council, still attending as a Proportional Representative councillor. On his own request, Dagada appeared before council’s ethics committee in March. The committee decided to refer the matter to the City’s integrity commission, where, because of the resignation, it has since been struck off the roll.

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android