Reply by Peter de Villiers:
GOOD Member of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament
Note: This article originally appeared in the City Press on the 25th of June 2023.
I’m not ordinarily someone who raises issues with sisters and brothers in public. As a rule, if I have something to say I prefer to raise it directly with the individual or individuals concerned, get it off my chest and move on.
But I’m breaking this rule to respond to the article in City Press (REF) placed by someone of very dubious character and integrity with an obvious axe to grind after recently being expelled from the GOOD Party.
The reason for Shaun August’s expulsion was that he was found guilty on charges relating to disgusting and unbecoming behaviour, and financial misconduct.
City Press knows this well, with the media having gleefully reported the details of his sordid escapades in Witzenberg with the then Deputy Mayor when he should have been focused on organising a by-election.
City Press also knows that August was recruited by the DA immediately after his expulsion. It doesn’t take rocket science to work out that his only use to the DA is to get back at his former employers.
Though I have on occasion been deeply embarrassed by August’s behaviour, and his attitudes to women and members of staff, it is not my intention to slander him as he’s done a pretty good job of that, himself.
Readers can make up their own minds about the integrity of his and the DA’s relationship. And he will have to bear the consequences of lying in a sworn statements.
My issue is that, despite knowing all of the above, and that political parties are mobilising ahead of next year’s election, City Press nonetheless saw fit to provide a platform for August to please his new masters by falsely accusing GOOD of financial impropriety.
City Press has sufficient understanding of the Western Cape political terrain to have spotted what was an obvious DA PR strategy to undermine a political rival.
Ordinary South Africans have for good reasons lost faith in the integrity of our politicians precisely because of their perceived lack of values and their failures to weed corrupt, unethical and unprincipled leaders from their ranks.
When GOOD does the right thing, it is very unfair for City Press to undermine the process by devoting space to a revenge political attack purely designed to besmirch the party.