Rasool fumes over 2010 'blunder'

20 December 2006

Cape Town - An angry Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool has called on the Cape Town city council to meet urgently to rectify what he says is a major procedural blunder threatening the proposed 2010 Green Point stadium.

He told journalists on Wednesday that instead of itself giving formal consent for the building of the stadium, the council had incorrectly referred the decision to provincial planning MEC Tasneem Essop when it submitted its rezoning application.

He said the matter would now have to go back to the council for consent, followed by a 21-day period for objections, and only then go back to Essop to consider the zoning decision.

"I am... dismayed that the City of Cape Town has either misread the law or that they have allowed incompetence into the process, so much so, that we now have this delay," Rasool said.

"This mistake should never have happened in the first place."

Semi-final warning

Chair of the 2010 local organising committee Irvin Khoza warned last week that if construction did not start in January, Cape Town could kiss its World Cup semi-final goodbye.

"We are not going to be remembered as people who procrastinate, who cannot deliver and who waste time," Khoza said.

Rasool said he was "particularly angry" given that as recently as November 29 the city rejected a proposal to partner with the province and business community through a special purpose vehicle.

"In rejecting this they asserted that they were a competent authority, they were capacitated to manage the process, and that they will manage of their own," he said.

He appealed to mayor Helen Zille to convene the council either before the end of the year, or "very early" in January.

Doing so would reassure Fifa that the city was committed to the World Cup and to completing the stadium within the given timeframes.

'Letter of comfort'

Rasool said he had spoken to local organising committee chief executive Danny Jordaan, who was in Zurich, to brief him on what was happening, and Jordaan had asked for a formal "letter of comfort" explaining what was being done to remedy the situation.

Jordaan had in turn promised to brief Fifa boss Sepp Blatter.

Rasool said had Essop's legal team not picked up this "critical error", the "entire decision" would have been open to severe legal challenge in what was already a "very litigious situation".

The Green Point Common Association, a grouping of residents, has threatened legal action to block construction.

Source: News24