“South Africa's World Cup stadiums could change the image of Africa forever, or stand as spectacular monuments to extravagance and waste in a country still struggling to spread the fruits of majority rule.”
“Are the new stadiums built for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, a country where football jostles with rugby and cricket for audience, destined to become white elephants after the month-long tournament? That's the 12.1-billion-rand, or 1.57-billion-dollar question - the cost of five new stadiums in Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth, Nelspruit and Polokwane.”
“The "white elephant" spectre is one that has come to haunt World Cup and Olympic Games hosts.... ”
“Cape Town is set to sign away the R4.5bn Green Point super-stadium - for just R1 a year..... Ralph Malan, a retired engineer and vehement opponent of the [Green Point] stadium, says the project has been “bedevilled from start to finish with official deception of the public”.”
“The stadium is going to haemorrhage money.”
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Will World Cup stadiums change Africa's image?
Barry Moody, Mail & Guardian
Dec 29 2009 06:01
 $1,2bn (R8,9bn). The estimated total construction cost of SA's 10 World Cup stadiums. [ANC Captain Blighs of S.Y. ZA-Titanic Charging Full 'Circus Maximus' Speed Ahead to 2010 World Cup Iceberg...] |
South Africa's World Cup stadiums could change the image of Africa forever, or stand as spectacular monuments to extravagance and waste in a country still struggling to spread the fruits of majority rule.
South Africa has confounded sceptics who said the stadiums would never be finished in time for next June's soccer spectacular and is close to completing 10 top-class venues that bear comparison with the world's best.
But while that controversy has passed, the debate has not diminished over whether Africa's first World Cup should have been more modest, freeing up millions of dollars to help an army of poor who live in squalor 15 years after the end of apartheid. When Pretoria won the right to stage the 2010 tournament back in 2004, it set the budget for stadiums at about R3-billion ($390-million). After the addition of two extra arenas and some dazzling architectural overlays, that figure has now escalated to at least R13-billion ($1,7-billion). Critics say the money was wasted and should have been spent on alleviating poverty -- which feeds South Africa's frightening rate of violent crime -- building millions of new houses to replace apartheid-era informal settlements and combating the HIV/Aids. They charge that many of the stadiums will quickly become unused relics after the tournament.
"When you build enormous stadia, you are shifting those resources ... from building schools and hospitals and then you have these huge structures standing empty ... They become white elephants," the late anti-apartheid campaigner Dennis Brutus said in the recent documentary film Fahrenheit 2010.
"Will it ever be possible for a ANC party politician who claims to have the mandate of poor blacks in this country to go and stand in some of these poor areas and justify why the government saw fit to spend a billion rand or more on a stadium? It cannot be done," Frans Cronje, deputy CEO of the South African Institute of Race Relations told Reuters.
Argument
 One of the emergency financial decisions by the Pontiac City Council was to sell the Pontiac Silverdome, originally built for $55.7 million 35 years ago, for $583,000.... less than a house, or Rodent Infested Manhattan One Bed Room Apartment. ANC Captain Blighs of S.Y. ZA-Titanic Charging Full 'Circus Maximus' Speed Ahead to 2010 World Cup Iceberg... |
But there is another side to the argument that says the World Cup gives Africa the chance finally to reverse stereotypes of famine, pestilence and war that still blight the continent.
Nobel peace prize laureate and anti-apartheid hero Archbishop Desmond Tutu has said the World Cup will have as big an impact for black people as the election of US President Barack Obama and will give new pride to a still divided nation.
"With all the negative things that are taking place in Africa, this is a superb moment for us. If we are going to have white elephants, so be it," he said.
Economists also say World Cup construction has cushioned South Africa from the global recession and will contribute close to R56-billion ($7,3-billion) to the economy. "It has been a huge blessing for South Africa in view of the recession," said Gillian Saunders of business consultants Grant Thornton.
The World Cup cannot be detached from its context, a country still scarred by apartheid where soccer is the passion of the black majority -- who sometimes in the past had to go cap in hand to white-run rugby stadiums to stage matches.
"Under the apartheid government, football facilities in disadvantaged areas were neglected and there was a complete lack of recognition for the sport," the local organising committee said this year.
The newly built stadiums certainly go beyond what is strictly necessary to stage a football match, even one watched by the world's biggest television audience.
From the soaring arch and sky train over Durban's oceanside venue to Cape Town's majestic arena between Table Mountain and the Atlantic, to the white petals shrouding Port Elizabeth's bowl and the huge, calabash-shaped Soccer City stadium in Johannesburg, the new stadiums are magnificent.
Even the smaller arenas of Nelspruit and Polokwane have their own unique architectural flourishes, although with no top rugby or soccer teams here or in Port Elizabeth it is harder to rebut charges that these stadiums will become white elephants after a few World Cup matches.
Affirmation
 Foul! Secret World of FIFA: Bribes, Vote-rigging & Ticket Scandals; by Andrew Jennings |
Nevertheless, the stadiums' spectacular style can perhaps be seen as going way beyond football -- the affirmation of the capabilities of a young, democratic country in the face of doubts and cynicism both at home and abroad. "For the many little boys kicking a ball in the streets of the world's townships and squatter camps, football is the stuff of dreams," said commentator Tinyiko Sam Maluleke.
"I will not deny millions of boys in Africa and all over the chance to watch their idols strut their stuff on African soil. I will not deny them inspiration. 2010 is about much more than money and text-book definitions of development," he told the Mail and Guardian.
“Soccer, being a choice drug of the masses, screws up our brains by keeping us away from thinking, planning and organizing to change our situation. It basically makes us spineless people who fear to challenge the big lie that has been force-fed on us as a collective truth.” -- Soccer as a Tool of Oppression: F**k the World Cup |
Cronje said the World Cup would not drag South Africa out of poverty "but it does something else. It puts Africa quite directly in front of the rest of the world ... the impression of Africa as a continent will shift."
"Nobody who is poor and lives in a shack is going to be living in different circumstances when the final whistle is blown ... but it may happen in the long term that people go back to the soccer World Cup and say it was a milestone of change on the continent and in the way the continent is regarded."
One South African World Cup official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters: "Football means a lot to these people in our country. This is not a panacea but it has lifted our people's psyche, lifted their belief in themselves." - Reuters
Source: Mail & Guardian
World Cup to blame for airport fees hike [Fight Over Scarce Resources]
By Craig McKune, The Star
December 22 2009 at 11:14AM
The Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) has blamed massive overspending on its airport upgrades - at the root of a proposed 133 percent increase in airport fees - on the country's scramble to finish major projects in time for the World Cup.
Even so, Mohammed Sizwe, the chairman of the independent economic regulator that will rule on Acsa's proposed hike, says the "unprecedented" increase request is unlikely to be granted.
In the face of robust criticism from airlines, Acsa has continued to defend its fee proposal, saying it is needed to recover the costs of the parastatal's R17 billion developments at South African airports.
But Jeff Poole, the director for industry charges, fuel and taxation at the International Air Transport Association (Iata), slammed its explanation, saying the airport upgrades were "overelaborate" and the new airport at La Mercy in Durban was regarded by airlines as unnecessary.
Comair joint chief executive Erik Venter further criticised Acsa for running over budget on its airport developments and upgrades.
La Mercy, originally budgeted at R3.1 billion, was now projected to cost R6.8bn, Venter said, while renovations at Cape Town International Airport had run 30 percent over budget and OR Tambo International was costing 11 percent more than planned.
 The symptoms of overpopulation colliding with finite or scarce resources (ecological overshoot resource wars) include: energy depletion, food shortages, species extinction, politically correct fascism, Immigration and emigration racism and xenophobia, terrorism, starvation, poverty, disease, crime, economic & political instability, pain and misery... Population Policy Common Sense |
Nicky Knapp, Acsa's group specialist for commercial marketing, stated that the cost escalations were the result of "the fight for scarce resources as several industry players rush to complete significant infrastructure requirements for the 2010 Fifa World Cup".
At La Mercy, she blamed "having to wait for the record of decision from the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism", after which the project had to be accelerated to meet the World Cup deadline.
While Knapp said the airport upgrades were undertaken in 2006 after "structured engagements" with airlines, both Poole and Venter said these consultations had been "totally inadequate".
Poole said the tariff hike "would make Acsa's charges the highest in the world compared to airports of similar size".
According to an Iata analysis, the proposal - a 132.9 percent increase in 2010/11 and another 24.4 percent hike the following year - would raise the cost of international travel to the country, reducing the number of international tourists and impacting the wider economy by $198m (R1.4bn) and $285m (R2.1bn) in the next two years.
This would compound a $440m (R3.3bn) loss already caused by lower passenger numbers because of the economic slowdown.
Venter said he estimated that locally, the increase would lead to an expected drop in passenger numbers of 10 percent.
Knapp, however, said: "Acsa does not believe the proposed tariff increase will have a material effect on traffic volumes."
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Iata blackened Acsa's name earlier this year by placing it in their "Hall of Shame" for the proposal - alongside Heathrow, Dubai, Mumbai and Delhi airports.
Poole said Acsa was abusing its monopoly position: "Their failure to perform is not something that should be passed on to the airlines and passengers.
"This responsibility should be borne by its shareholders... They're out of their minds, frankly."
Sizwe said the last increase in airport fees, five years ago was, "in the region of 18 percent, but their request had been much more - about 30 percent - and there was a big hullabaloo about that too".
While he acknowledged the impacts that such an increase would have on international travel, he said the impact on the domestic market would be much greater.
"And it is unlikely that 133 percent will be assented to because of these very implications."
Acsa and the regulating committee were busy negotiating the proposal, and a draft permission report would be published next month, after which the airlines would have three weeks to respond before a final draft is gazetted.
This article was originally published on page 2 of The Star on December 22, 2009
Source: IOL
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