Cape Town - Mayor Patricia de Lille has put the blame for minstrel parade delays firmly at the door of the associations involved, and has warned that the City of Cape Town will ask the public protector to investigate if audited financial statements are not provided.
“They must take complete responsibility for messing up their own event.”
De Lille said the city would ask for the audited financial statements of the Cape Cultural and Carnival Committee to determine how public funds were spent and to prevent this “kind of mismanagement” from happening again.
“Recently new information has come to light regarding the committee, including the allocation of multiple sources of funding and the records of criminal activities of its leaders, such as Mr (Richard) Stemmet.”
It’s been reported that the National Lotteries Board paid Stemmet and Kevin Momberg’s Cape Town Minstrel Carnival Association more than R45 million since 2002.
“The use of public funds is for the public good, not the private profits of the self-interested,” said De Lille.
The minstrel parade, scheduled for December 3, 2014, was initially postponed out of respect for the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday celebrations.
The new date of January 5 was postponed when the associations could not get public transport organised in time.
The associations then said the parade would take place on January 10.
“They didn’t inform the city that it was cancelled, they just announced that it would coincide with the ANC event.”
The event was postponed again to January 17.
“Chronic mismanagement, nonpayment of service providers and a lack of transparency interrupted this event several times.”
De Lille said the city had asked the minstrel associations for proof that all service providers had been paid as per its agreement. The city gave R2m to the committee to organise the various events to cover the costs of the toilets, fencing, security, medical services and public relations.
It also contributed R1.65m towards the events for city services.
De Lille said last month that the committee would have to provide a full event report to council by March and that the city would monitor and evaluate the committee’s performance in terms of its agreement.
Momberg’s cellphone was off on Wednesday night when contacted for comment.
Cape Argus