Helen Zille Knysna Meeting #2: Mike Hampton
Did i, as the media claimed, “hijack” Helen Zille’s election meeting?
Knysna has been denied answers by the Democratic Alliance (DA) regarding so many issues. My personal pursuit has met the walls of DA Eastern Region Manager Jaco Londt, MEC Alan Winde and Helen Zille. When i took some matters to Parliament, the DA alternatively refused to answer, lied and sought delay based on falsehood.
The DA refuses to admit when it does wrong. The covering up of cronyism is more important to them than us. It’s ironic that Helen Zille, at her meeting in Knysna last week, stated that country comes before party and party before selfishness. What we’ve witnessed in Knysna shows that to be a lie, dirty actions far greater than words sounding good in an election campaign.
HELEN ZILLE’S MEETING IN KNYSNA
Her rare attendance in Knysna (never as Premier, only as DA campaigner) was an opportunity for me to try get answers again. I realised i’d be walking into a room of blue, mostly conservatives who have no love for my activism which dares to rock their status quo. Nevertheless, i’m an activist, not a coward.
Listen to this recording carefully…
Helen Zille immediately lied regarding the scandal that is Knysna Tourism. Whether she did so voluntary or was supplied false info by her underlings, would not change it from being a lie. She used an apparent clean audit as an impossible catch-all answer.
Understand that one audit (which the DA has never made public) could not excuse many years of scandal and favouritism at Knysna Tourism.
One audit, even if included the matters i’ve presented, could not cover 4 years during which R2.5-million in public funds was illegally used to pay its debt.
One audit could never excuse an independent investigation that recommended the CEO be fired.
One audit could not erase that a different, internal audit doubted the organisation could continue.
Yet, after 5 years of questioning and tons of evidence submitted, Zille was quick to easily dismiss the situation as if it were my fantasy.
Councillor Peter Myers then addresses the ISDF, the plan for Knysna’s future, basically saying that i don’t understand it, and goes on to dismiss it as an issue even though it’s obviously a major source of conflict in our town. His hypocrisy is that the ISDF tender, him fighting against it, arguably aided him and Mayoral Candidate Eleanore Bouw-Spies in coming to power.
50 people in the room, including all the DA leadership, received a flyer that included information against DA Candidates Dr Martin Young and Rowan Spies (whom were both in the room). They were quick to shut me down because they did not want to speak of the DA’s mistakes, crimes and in-fighting that has so damaged Knysna.
“NO”
When you hear me saying “no” to Bouw-Spies, i’m doing so in defiance of her continued failure as Speaker, a position that requires her to uphold the morals and integrity of Councillors. Instead, she’s been covering for them whilst moving to take the throne (which i predicted 2 years ago).
What you can’t see is that Helen Zille blatantly nodded in agreement that she would talk to me afterwards (she did). Despite her doing so, some DA “leaders” decided to childishly chant that i should leave.
At no stage was i threatening. I remained in my chair at all times, even when i had the microphone. No one had to “calm” me down (as the Knysna-Plett Herald’s Christo Vermaak falsely reported).
From my initial query, it’s obvious that i was going to present more detail and questions, and that i was being polite to Helen, asking if she would like to respond to each point as opposed to me saying it all in one go.
No reasonable person can say that Helen Zille, Peter Myers and Eleanore Bouw-Spies made anything clearer.
Hopefully Helen will keep her word and return to me on the issues we discussed after the meeting. I’ll blog about that separately.
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If your browser doesn’t show the play button below, listen to what happened on Soundcloud.