Acting Cape Town Mayor, Ian Neilson says the City of Cape Town will focus on delivering services to the city’s resident’s following the Patricia de Lille debacle.
Neilson told Political Analysis South Africa on Friday, 11 May 2018 that de Lille’s exit as the city’s mayor provides the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) caucus an opportunity to redirect its efforts to service delivery.
“We have to now focus on looking at the issues of services delivering and the governance issues. I don’t believe the fact of Ms. de Lille has any impact on those. Those are issues completely separate from that,” he said.
“The fact that she leaves creates the opportunity for as to overcome that particular issue and being able to move on with the normal job of governance,” he added.
Neilson also admitted that the motion of no confidence held by the DA caucus in the city and the subsequent ousting of de Lille has caused the public to lose trust in the capabilities of the party’s leadership.
“We do accept that there has been some loss of trust because of the political situation in the Council [City Council] but we have to move on, move past that and rebuild our trust with the public,” he said.
“It’s a process over time that you have to demonstrate to the public that you are governing the city correctly, you achieve results and people begin to see those results.”
“You can never rely and simply believe that people support you no matter what. You have to constantly earn trust of the people and that is what we will focus on,” he added.
