De Lille demands apology for fellow DA members’ ‘defamation’
The soon-to-be former Cape Town mayor has threatened the four DA members who shared a fake post accusing her of misconduct with legal action.
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Cape Town mayor Patricia De Lille has lashed out at four top DA members, accusing them in an open letter of defamation after distributing an image making claims about her that had previously been proven false.
De Lille is set to step down at the end of the month after striking a deal with her party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), after a long, vicious and protracted battle which saw the party trying to remove her as well as pressing charges against her, which have since been dropped.
Now, it seems that her battles against her own party have not ended. According to the soon-to-be former mayor, four DA members named as Mike Waters, Henk Hugo, Shehana Kajee, and Bronwynn Engelbrecht “re-posted otherwise distributed an image on social media which made claims about various ‘findings’ against me by the Auditor-General.”
READ MORE: Charges dropped against De Lille in deal that sees her quitting as mayor
De Lille then reminds those accused of circulating the image that the auditor-general himself dismissed the contents as fake, declaring that his signature had been forged and that his office denied knowledge of where the document had come from.
De Lille said back in March that she would lay criminal charges and a complaint against those who’d shared the false allegations against her.
The image was initially posted on Facebook by Waters, who claimed he’d simply found it on Twitter. It was then shared by the other three DA members. Waters later deleted the post.
In light of this information, I will be laying criminal charges against those who shared the fraudulent post. I will also lodge a formal complaint against the named @Our_DA members with the FLC. https://t.co/UkTmLMVani
— Patricia de Lille (@PatriciaDeLille) May 7, 2018
The letter goes on to explain that De Lille wants the four DA members to retract the image and its contents and publicly apologise, failing which she will take legal action against them.
“You have seven days till 18 October 2018 to issue a public apology,” the letter states.
READ MORE: De Lille to lay charges against those who shared false post about her
The post, which is pictured below, claimed to “expose” De Lille for having broken the rules in relation to a MyCiti bus tender.
It is signed by Auditor-General Thembekile “Kimi” Makwetu, but the signature has since been found to have been forged.
The Citizen approached Mike Waters for comments. He did not get back to us by the time of publication.
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