MEC Qubudile Richard Dyantyi met with councilors at the Cape Sun Hotel on the 17 October 2006. The sole purpose of this meeting was to discuss the proposed change of city governance to an executive committee system. This meeting comes shortly after Dyantyi issued a letter to City of Cape Town Executive Mayor Helen Zille on the 18 September 2006 informing her of his intention to change the type of municipality in respect of the City of Cape Town.
The meeting was boycotted by councilors from the multi-party government after legal experts advised that a full council mandate was needed before the consultation could go ahead. It was opened to the media and the public. All councilors were invited to this consultation session as this was a platform for them to voice out their views on the matter. City of Cape Town's Executive Mayor Helen Zille and Municipal Manager Achmat Ebrahim failed to attend this meeting. "In school when a student fails to attend a lecture. Classes don't stop just because that student didn't attend. Lectures go ahead as planned," said Dyantyi. After MEC's brief intro, he invited councilors to share their views on the intended change. Out spoken Independent Democrats city caucus leader, Simon Grindrod was the first on the stand, he said a system change would have to be achieved through an election process. He also emphasized that they are in favor of the EXCO system. He also added that Mayor Zille likes to create media hype instead of following principle.
The African National Congress's views were conveyed by Local Chief Whip Peter Gabriel, caucus leader Mbelelo Ncedana and councilors Koos Bredenhand and Carol Beerwinkel respectively. Gabriel said that the city was now more divided along racial lines than ever because of the way in which the Democratic Alliance administration had established sub-councils.
MEC Dyantyi would be meeting with National Minister of Local Government Sydney Mufumadi on the 18 October 2006 and at a later stage with Salga. Dyantyi said he found it rather "strange" that the DA, with democratic principles like the ANC, was not prepared to work together in a "collective space."
