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."
Chairperson 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 semifinal goodbye.
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.
The council has already held its last scheduled meeting of the year, and
the next one is only at the end of January.
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.
