Cape Town - The DA is facing setbacks in the Garden Route with the resignation of two of its councillors, one in Mossel Bay and the other in Knysna, and an investigation by the Hawks relating to allegations of fraud and corruption levelled against Hessequa DA mayor Grant Riddles.
On Friday in a double whammy for the party, Anco Barker, a former Garden Route District Mayco member for financial services, resigned from both the council and the party, citing “transparency issues and fraud”, while former DA speaker of Knysna Julie Lopes quit and joined ActionSA.
Meanwhile, on May 24, the Hessequa Council unanimously resolved to refer Riddles to a disciplinary committee within 30 days.
Barker, who made a TikTok video of her resignation, said the DA caucus in Mossel Bay Municipality had acted “in an unfit, not so honest and all-but-transparent manner” by willingly and knowingly withholding critical information from agenda items to mislead the council.
Barker would however not immediately share details and said: “I’m not willing to delve into the critical details of the misconduct at this stage, but will soon release a detailed report on such.”
Barker served the Mossel Bay council as a member of a number of the infra-structure services committees; the corporate and governance services committee; the financial services committee and the community services committee.
Reacting to the resignation, DA Western Cape provincial leader Tertuis Simmers wished her well and said the DA-governed Mossel Bay was proud of its service delivery record.
“The DA is unapologetically a party for all; we have robust debate and then ensure that as a collective we take decisions for the benefit of the entire community.”
Reacting to Lopes’s resignation from the Knysna municipal council and the DA, Knysna constituency head Dion George said Lopes would be replaced by whoever was next on the list of the party’s candidates for the 2021 local government elections.
ActionSA leader Herman Mashaba and the party’s Western Cape chairperson Michelle Wasserman said Lopes would play an important role in “strategic litigation to ensure that the voices of so many forgotten by the current provincial government are heard”.
Last year, backed by the DA, Lopes took the municipality to court on the issue of cadre deployment in Knysna and won the case.
