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Cape Town – While the ANC stole outside the legal framework, the DA "thieves" in the City of Cape Town within the legal framework, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said on Tuesday.
The trade union federation, South Africa’s largest, was responding to reports that the DA-run City of Cape Town is paying a public relations firm Resolve Communications, headed by its former leader Tony Leon and communications director Nick Clelland, R658 000 to improve the City’s drought crisis communication.
Read: City of Cape Town loses R1.6bn due to reduced water consumption
Cosatu spokesperson Sizwe Pamla said the reports add to the "new brand of corruption" emerging from the DA since Cape Town City manager Achmat Ebrahim stepped down on Friday.
"Tony Leon and an ex-employee of the City of Cape Town are being paid half a million rand to tell Capetonians that it is not raining," Pamla said in a statement.
"The only thing that Tony Leon does is to sit on his chair and at 10:00, send out a press statement, to say that it has not rained today, and it is not wet and no more water went into the dams."
Resolve Communications responds
Resolve Communications’s Lauren Kent said Cosatu’s "statement is not worth responding to" in an email to News24.
When approached for comment, the City referred to their written answers provided on Monday.
The City of Cape Town sub-contracted Resolve Communications in November to provide "strategic advice" to improve the City’s drought crisis communication.
The agency’s contract - amounting to a total payment of R658 000 - is set to end in February.
"It is a vast undertaking to develop programmes that can reach each and every resident. Resolve provides guidance on how best this can be achieved," the City said on Monday.
"Changing behaviour is more cost-effective than building new infrastructure."
