DA's Athol Trollip won't apologise after being pictured with a hose

This after the Democratic Alliance mayoral candidate for Nelson Mandela Bay was pictured with a fire hose on Saturday, helping to extinguish a fire in a Port Elizabeth suburb.

Trollip says, as a public representative, he was always committed to serving communities in need.

“With no emergency services on the scene yet, I could not drive past without helping, because I care for the people of this metro. Any person who cares and sees a fire and possessions being burnt would jump in and help in any way possible and that is exactly what I, and various DA councillors and activists did," he said.

He said he was not sorry at all about what he had done. 

"I came to the aid of grief-stricken residents by dousing the flames with buckets of water and hosepipes, and I am not sorry that I did. I will not stand by and let vulnerable people suffer, as the ANC has done here for 22 years," he said.

'Photo opportunity'

Yesterday, the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality said they had launched an internal investigation following Trollip’s firefighting "photo opportunity".

According to councillor Fikile Desi, mayoral committee member for safety and security, the investigation was of critical importance as the City could not allow a situation where professional firemen and women could have been impeded during the execution of their duties, his spokesperson Kupido Baron told News24.

He said three rescue pumps with crews of at least four professionals per vehicle were dispatched to a house in the Port Elizabeth suburb of Windvogel at 14:59 on Saturday.

"The critical question of how Mr Trollip managed to get a fire hose to pose for a photo session while flames and smoke are still clearly visible on the publicity pictures must now be answered," the municipality said.