Cape Town Stadium expenses shrouded in mystery

A 2014 article in Globe and Mail sums up Cape Town Stadium (CTS):

“One of Africa’s most beautiful stadiums now sits empty and forgotten in the Atlantic Ocean breezes. Less than five years after being built for the World Cup, the $600-million Cape Town Stadium is largely abandoned.  Like most of South Africa’s former World Cup stadiums, this one is haemorrhaging money badly. The occasional concert – along with the $4 tours for a few hundred visitors per week – is not nearly enough to cover its operating costs. The 55,000-seat stadium is losing an estimated $6-million to $10-million annually.

“City officials say they are constantly bidding for events to hold at the stadium, but rarely succeed.”

With the business plan option full steam ahead through ice-bound waters, I thought I would write a review of CTS’ running costs.  But that will have to wait.

Three weeks ago I asked Mayco member for events Garreth Bloor for CTS’ last available published, that is, actual expenditure, income and other information. 

However, I’m dumbstruck – and I usually have a lot to say – that a simple request for public information has turned into an ordeal of deliberate obstruction and obfuscation.

Following a reminder to Bloor, last week I received expense “Plan 2015/2016” figures – the stadium’s budget published last year.  Since the public face of the city I copied and to whom I appealed for help – Garreth Bloor and deputy mayor Ian Neilson – has not responded or expedited my request (to be fair, Bloor initially promised their cooperation), I put my questions in this forum:

·         Why did administration and finance manager Werner Kuhn tell me they still had to “compile and complete” the information when it’s already on their system and was publically available last year?

·         Why did stadium manager Lesley de Reuck take six days to confirm it was budgeted, and not the actual I asked for?  Didn't he know (he was copied the figures sent me)?

·         Why did De Reuck say they must first have inter-departmental discussions/briefings before answering my list of questions about the expenses?

·         Why do numerous highly paid officers (manager R40 000-plus a month salary) – individually or together – need days to review questions about the stadium’s expenses?  Is there not one competent finance officer who can answer the questions?  (It took me less than two hours to review the expense schedule they sent, and I’m not an expert, neither do I earn a salary.)

·         Why did De Reuck say their response – about public spend on a public facility – was dependent on the Municipal Finance Management Act?

·         Does the MFMA also determine their response, or lack thereof, to ratepayers’ questions and concerns about the significant financial outlay envisaged in the stadium’s business plan option, and any other issue affecting the city?

·         Why did Kuhn obstruct my request – that they still must compile it – when the data is a year old and already in the public realm?  See Independent Online’s article “More woes for Cape stadium” 25/05/2015.

·         Why did De Reuck claim the need to consult internally about my request for information when he spoke to IOL’s Anél Lewis a year ago (25/05/2015) about the same 2015/2016 figures – the same high employee costs (my estimate R14.7 million) I asked about?

·         Why do they still need to think long and hard about my questions when IOL put the same questions I did about high employee costs and consultant fees to Neilson in 2013?  His response then was “we have to analyse (specific costs)… with more time”.  Isn’t three years long enough?

Why do they disingenuously pretend the information I asked for is complex and unavailable when these historical figures – either budgeted or published actual – were presented to the finance portfolio committee and council at least a year ago, and when Neilson stated in that IOL interview (8/05/2013) that (the stadium’s) reports to the committee are “transparent”?

I informed Bloor I was writing an opinion piece about the stadium’s expenses.  This is not the one I had in mind, though.  I think the city is being contrary, defensive and obstructionist because – well, perhaps they don’t like me, if I were egotistical to think it was personal. 

But it’s more than that: they are afraid to let us know the stadium’s total annual costs are worse than we think.  Based on what I’ve seen, I think it is R55 million including total employee costs.

Watch this space.

See my recent blog "Cape Town Stadium, the white elephant we can't afford".