Row erupts over Mbeki comment
2004-04-02 13:40
Port Elizabeth - A row has broken out over a claim by President Thabo Mbeki that a Democratic Alliance councillor in Port Elizabeth refused to walk in squatter areas for fear of getting her feet dirty.
Mbeki made the allegation on Friday during a day of campaigning in the Nelson Mandela metropole.
However the DA has strongly rejected the claim, describing it as rubbish.
The counsellor is Anne Knight who represents Ward Three on the Metro council.
Addressing about 1 000 people at a mini-rally in Port Elizabeth's northern areas, Mbeki said residents of a squatter area in the city's Walmer Location told him earlier in the day that Knight refused to get out of her car to talk to the people she was supposed to represent there.
"And the reason she's refusing to get out of the car, is because the roads are too dirty. So she does not want her shoes to be dirty. The people she is representing have to walk up and down those roads every day."
Mbeki had been told she would not even drive her car into the area for fear it would get dirty.
So instead the people went to go and talk to her at her home about their problems. "And they say when they get there, she says: You cannot come into my house. Sit on the stoep. How can a person like that help our people solve their problems?" Mbeki said.
He said he was sure the DA was going to go back to Walmer and ask people to vote for it.
He said an African National Congress councillor who behaved in that way would have stopped being an ANC member "long ago".
Knight was not immediately available for comment on Friday afternoon. However, DA councillor Bobby Tekisani said it looked as though the ANC was "running scared" of the DA's influence in Walmer.
He said he had walked the streets of the squatter area visited by Mbeki with Knight in order to identify problems people experienced.
"We have walked around. We have even identified points to put in taps. I was always at all given times with her. That's why I'm challenging the president's statement."
He said Knight was a "very, very humble, caring person" and had even started up a programme in the area for Aids orphans.
- SAPA