Mayor responsible for huge loss to city economy - re: stadium debacle

The stadium of Cape Town is being mismanaged by the city of Cape Town, due to the attitude of the Mayor of Cape Town. Clearly negotiations are a sensitive matter and have to be handled sensitively, with lots of emotional intelligence which seems to be in short supply by the City political leadership. The outburst by the City and the general lack of a vision and plan for the Cape Stadium has led to this crisis (see report).

The people of Cape Town demand a coherent plan to address the stadium usage and the availability to the Public. The present ad hoc arrangement sees the City subsidise various activities for the wealthier section of Cape Town and this comes at the cost of services to poor communities. The knock-on benefits of the stadium use for big events needs to be carefully determined and accurately reported. We cannot have the same lies being repeated about the construction of the stadium for the World Cup, when in effect tourism numbers are down on previous years.

A coherent plan that takes account of the value add of the stadium for the City, not only in direct benefits and cost , but also the indirect benefits and cost has to be determined. The mayors must also refrain from grandstanding in such sensitive negotiations and leave the discussions to the experts, as her actions has lost the City R200 million rand in income from the Saracens match to the City economy.

We are demanding that the City makes available the information around the usage of the stadium, as present indications are that friends of the City is benefitting from this white elephant at a huge cost to rate payers and more urgent social needs.

Statement issued by COSATU Western Cape Provincial Secretary, Tony Ehrenreich, November 18 2011

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