De Lille says she paid from her pocket to attend the EFF memorial

“I just want to assure everyone that I have not used a half a cent for anything from the City of Cape Town. I paid for it myself. The City will only pay for me when I go on official business. I went there in my personal capacity. The transport to get me to Brandfort and back, I paid for it myself, I didn’t take a cent from the City of Cape Town.”

These are the words of Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille, who was speaking on Radio 702 this morning, answering a question about who had funded her trip to the EFF memorial service of struggle icon Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, which was held in Brandfort, Free State, on Wednesday.

Her attendance and public address at the event not only raised speculation that she could be signalling her party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), that she is ready to find a new political home should she be ousted as Cape Town mayor, but it also led to her organisation saying it would have been courteous of her to inform the party of her intent to attend and speak at the EFF memorial.

However, the DA said in a statement that it had not charged De Lille for attending the event.

“If people want to speculate about these things, my telephone number is widely known, and it’s on the City website, so you can pick up the phone and call me, I will personally respond immediately. But I want to assure Capetonians that I didn’t take any money from the City of Cape Town,” De Lille said this morning.

She said Madikizela-Mandela’s family had invited her to the EFF memorial on Wednesday, adding that in her culture – African culture – one did not need to be invited to attend a memorial service.

“A memorial service it is customary that you must go,” De Lille said.

She said she would not engage her party’s statement that she should explain herself for attending an EFF-organised event.

“If people want to make it a side issue, I think it is very disrespectful to Mama Winnie Mandela to now make an issue of me attending a memorial service. I can attend a memorial service anywhere of any person that has fallen. I mean, I’ve been to the memorial service of Pam Golding the other day,” she said.

The Cape Town mayor said the passing of an individual should not be made an issue, adding that yesterday she responded to her party that she would only deal with these issues after Madikizela-Mandela’s funeral.

“The country is in mourning, we must all respect Mama Winnie, and you know what, if we wanted to make it an issue about why I spoke at her memorial service, why didn’t we just wait a few days because now the country is abuzz with me appearing at a memorial service, and I will not even respond to that because I respect Mama Winnie too much,” she said.

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