Cape Town's clean audit is gone, and with it the Democratic Alliance's strongest political defence, argues Faiez Jacobs. He says the latest audit findings should trigger greater scrutiny of procurement, public spending and governance in South Africa's best-known DA-run city
I know Cape Town beyond the postcard.
I know the Auntie counting coins at the kitchen table, the pensioner watching electricity units disappear, the mother lifting a mattress before floodwater reaches her child. I know the other Cape Town too: the promise that this is “the city that works”. But really only for the FEW..
For years, the Democratic Alliance used one phrase to silence the distance between these two cities: Clean Audit.
When families asked where the houses were, they were shown the audit. When residents questioned rising bills, they were shown the audit. When shack fires returned, drains overflowed, gangs buried another child and small businesses asked who wins the big tenders, they were shown the audit.
