GOOD Statement by Matthew Cook,
GOOD National Chairperson and City of Cape Town Councillor
20 August 2026
The GOOD Caucus will attend the City of Cape Town Council meeting today, 20 August 2026 because councillors have a responsibility to be in Council and do the work for which residents elected them.
We will not, however, attend the Speaker’s year-end dinner on the same evening.
GOOD believes that the Speaker, Alderman Felicity Purchase, should not tell councillors that the City must save money when it comes to the regular business of Council, and then suddenly find money for an elaborate, catered sit-down dinner with entertainment when it suits the Speaker’s office.
For a long period, Cape Town Councillors have been told that physical Council meetings are not practical, with cost-saving among the reasons cited by the Speaker. Councillors and residents have been expected to accept that austerity requires changes to how the elected Council conducts its business.
Yet on 20 August, Council is returning to a physical meeting and on the very same day, the Speaker is hosting a sit-down dinner for councillors in the Civic Centre’s Banqueting Hall.
That raises an obvious question, where did the cost-saving principle go?
GOOD has no objection to Councillors recognising colleagues who have served the City, nor to the conferment of Alderman status on those who deserve it. However, there is a fundamental difference between conducting the business of Council and spending public money on a social function.
If cost-saving is the reason given for restricting how Council operates, then the Speaker must apply that principle consistently.
Cost-saving cannot be used as a convenient excuse when it affects Council business and then ignored when it affects the Speaker’s own programme.
The Speaker’s office has not provided councillors or the public with a transparent breakdown of the costs supposedly saved by moving away from physical Council meetings. Nor has it provided the cost of this dinner or explained why this expenditure is justified in the context of the financial constraints that have repeatedly been cited.
That is not good enough. Residents of Cape Town are being asked to accept higher costs, tighter budgets and difficult financial choices. They have every right to expect the same discipline from those spending public money on their behalf.
GOOD will not participate in a dinner that raises legitimate questions about double standards in the use of public funds.
We will be in Council today. We will debate, scrutinise, vote and do the work that residents elected us to do but when the Council meeting ends, GOOD councillors will not be sitting down to a Speaker-hosted dinner at the public’s expense.
This is not about a meal. It is about principle. It is about whether the rules of financial discipline apply equally to everyone.
It is about whether “cost-saving” is a genuine financial imperative or simply a convenient justification when the Speaker wants to use it.
GOOD believes that if there is money to spend, the first priority must be the people of Cape Town. Budgets should be used for fixing infrastructure, improving services, supporting communities and making this city work for everyone not for lavish dinners.
Cape Town residents deserve better than selective austerity. Cost-saving cannot be a convenience. Accountability cannot be selective. Public money is not party money.
Media Enquiries: media@forgood.org.za