City of Cape Town Speaker accused of bias by opposition parties
Cape Town - City of Cape Town Speaker, Felicity Purchase, has been served a motion of no confidence notice, set to be tabled against her at the Council meeting on March 27, amid allegations that she persistently fails to uphold the integrity of Council processes.
The motion is brought by a multi-party caucus, led by the ANC and includes opposition parties such as the EFF, GOOD Party, National Coloured Congress (NCC), Patriotic Alliance (PA) and Al Jama-ah.
The parties are seeking for the motion to be tabled due to what they called biased behaviour and use of bullying tactics by Purchase during Council meetings.
They feel that Purchase “has persistently displayed a pattern of behaviour which is unbecoming” and that her actions “consistently betray the lawful expectation that the Speaker will at all material times act without fear, favour or prejudice”.
They also feel that Purchase undermined the Programming Committee resolution that the first Council meeting of 2025 will be physical, and that she “unilaterally changed this decision based on spurious ‘security reasons’”.
Opposition party members gathered outside the Civic Centre last month in protest calling for the suspension of Safety and Security mayco member JP Smith, after a raid was conducted by the Commercial Crimes detectives on his office, and the office of fellow Mayco Member, Xanthea Limberg.
A few days after the raid, the Speaker announced that the Council meeting would occur virtually, and not in person.
ANC councillor Banele Majingo said the motion comes after concerns regarding the Speaker’s handling of critical matters.
“Our primary concern is the Speaker’s failure to uphold the integrity of Council processes, particularly in relation to the serious allegations against Mayoral Committee members, JP Smith and Grant Twigg,” Majingo said.
The EFF’s Banzi Dambuza called Purchase the “most cockiest Speaker the City of Cape Town has ever had” and said the reason why they submitted the motion so early is so that there are “no excuses” and that there will not be “any delaying tactics in order for it not to come into Council”.
The PA’s Cheslyn Steenberg said they support the motion as they have also experienced the bias of the Speaker and bullying tactics.
When Purchase was contacted for comment, she said: “The Office of the Speaker is aware of a motion submitted by the ANC in the above-mentioned regard, and will follow due process as outlined in the requirements dealing with motions as contained under Rule 18 of the Rules of Order.”
Dambuza added that while there are many questioning how they are going to pull off removing Purchase, “unfortunately, we are not going to be coming here and divulging how we are going to win our war”.