Cape Town – Malusi Booi (DA), who was axed as the City of Cape Town mayoral committee member for human settlements in March, caused a stir at this morning’s (April 26) council meeting when he called attention to the fact that he had yet to be provided with a laptop.
Booi was ousted from his mayoral committee post after his offices were raided in a blitz led by the SAPS commercial crimes unit amid ongoing investigations into allegations of tender fraud at the housing department, which whistle-blowers estimated to be at least R700 million.
During the raid police removed electronic devices, phones of staff members and documents.
Booi, who remains a councillor and a member of the DA was making his return to council affairs for the first time since he was ousted.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday night he made his first public appearance since his troubles when he attended slain social activist Loyiso Nkohla’s memorial service.
Booi, whose entry to the chamber happened as mayor Geordin-Hill Lewis was beginning his speech, brought up the matter of his lack of equipment with Speaker Felicity Purchase as she was going through the meeting’s register of apologies for those not in attendance.
Booi said: “How are you? I'm just checking if my apology was sent as I do not have the tools of trade at the moment. If the verbal submission was sent at the previous meeting?”
Purchase responded: “Councillor, we'll deal with that when we get there.”
There then followed some heckling from councillors in the chamber urging the speaker to provide Booi with his “tools of trade” which Purchase ignored.
EFF councillor Mzubanzi Dambuza caught the speaker’s eye and said: “I just carry concern that councillor Malusi Booi cannot be here without tools of trade. Can we just provide him with a laptop?”
Purchase answered: “Councillor that is irrelevant to the correction of the minutes”
However, she added that a council official would check on the status of Booi’s laptop.
In his speech to the council Mayor Hill-Lewis sought to counter impressions that the City and the DA do not care for the poor following recent criticisms.
He said that based on an analysis of tabled budgets for each of the metros Cape Town would spend more on infrastructure than Johannesburg and Durban combined over the next three years.