Text of letter from Cape Town deputy mayor Ian Neilson to the Cape Times, March 14 2012

Dear Sir,

The article ‘City's R106m parking lot' dated 9 March and ‘R106m parking lot: ANC to seek probe' dated 12 March refer (see here and here).

The expansion of the area around the CTICC will see Cape Town further position itself as a leading global conference and events destination.  The area will play a key role in driving skills development and creating short and long term jobs. This is in keeping with our commitment to being a city that opens opportunities for all its citizens.

Despite the Cape Times portrayal of the site as a "parking lot" it is in fact a business site with rights to 37 000 m² bulk plus 900 parking bays.

It is perplexing that this newspaper would publish the comments of Mr Mansoor Mohamed without contextualising his position. Mr Mohamed was himself the Executive Director responsible for Property Management in the city at the time that the amount of R106m was determined.  For him to be ‘taken aback' now is disingenuous at best!

The expert quoted in the article, Mr Erwin Rode, actually agrees that the City has paid an understandable and fair price.  The numbers quoted in the article do not add up.  At the R2500/m² rate quoted by Mr Rode, this would value the site at R92.5m plus the value of the parking bays.

The City's independent valuation at R2800/m² sets a value of R103.6m.

It is now disingenuous for the ANC to now call foul.  In 2008, under an ANC provincial administration, the almost identical next door site was sold for R105m, which provides a valuation of R2838/m². There are more examples of sales in the city that maybe quoted where the sale was concluded in the range of R3063/m² to R4053/m².

These clumsy attempts at political manipulation would be laughable if they did not stand directly in the way of economic development and job creation in the City. The ANC has become a vexatious litigant at the Public Protector.  The City will co-operate with any investigation because we have nothing to hide, but public money could be better spent on investigating real issues of fraud and corruption.

What is indeed unacceptable is the fact that the provincial ANC still owes the CTICC R1,7m for the holding of their provincial congress at the venue two years ago. Perhaps their time would be better spent in settling their outstanding debts than in creating scandals where there are none.

Ian Neilson

Alderman Neilson is the Executive Deputy Mayor and Mayco Member on Finance at the City of Cape Town.

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