DA: Cyril is lying on land

The DA has accused President Cyril Ramaphosa of lying after he said the party was responsible for the Western Cape’s housing crisis.

“The DA got money from the national government and they couldn’t spend that money for houses. They have returned it to Pretoria. The DA is completely responsible for the unavailability of houses.

“I got very angry when I heard that they have returned R1.7 billion which was meant for houses for you here and they have returned it to National Treasury because they say they can’t spend it,” Ramaphosa told residents in Delft over the weekend while on the ANC election campaign trail.

However, DA provincial leader and Housing MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela accused Ramaphosa of lying.

“This is a blatant lie and the crassest form of dishonest electioneering,” he said.

“We did not send back a single cent to national government.”

Madikizela will deliver his budget vote speech for the Department of Human Settlements today, in which he is expected to highlight the budget priorities of funds for the coming financial year of 2019/20.

A graph accompanying his statement showed that since 2009, the province received over R19 billion and has managed to spend 100% of its budget.

But according to the provincial ANC, Ramaphosa is right.

“After interrogating the issue, we know of at least R1bn which was unspent, as well as a further R1.1bn which should have been used to provide water, sanitation, basic toilets and electricity to informal settlements,” ANC provincial elections head Ebrahim Rasool said.