Cape Town - The Cape Town International Convention Centre, which contributed R3.1 billion to the national GDP in the past financial year and generated more than 1.2 million delegate and visitor days, has already pumped about R100 million into its expansion so that it can take on more events from 2017.
Speaking after the CTICC’s annual general meeting yesterday, Gary Fisher, chairman of the Convenco board, said the CTICC east would add 10 000m2 of exhibition and event space.
Additional funding would come from other shareholders.
The 2013/14 financial results, released yesterday, were the first of the CTICC’s second decade of performance, he said.
Over the past decade, the CTICC has made a cumulative contribution of more than R25bn to the national economy and contributed R22m to the Western Cape economy.
In the year under review, the CTICC achieved a net profit before tax of R26m, with actual revenue reaching R172m against a target of R160m – an increase on the previous year of 11.4 percent.
Julie-May Ellingson, the new chief executive officer of the CTICC, said the centre was facing space constraints and was having to turn away requests for events.
“The expansion will allow the CTICC to stage more events, offer more flexibility and allow for an increase in the concurrent hosting of various sizes of meetings, conventions, exhibitions and events.”
Ellingson said said bids for the main contract would close in November and would be awarded before the builders’ holiday in mid-December.
If all went according to plan, the CTICC East would open in early 2017.
The proposed expansion has not been without its challenges, and was nearly scuppered by allegations of tender irregularities for the R700m architectural contract.
The public protector and the City of Cape Town, which since June has held a 62.8 percent share of the municipal entity, investigated the allegations.
Although there was evidence of “procedural flaws”, Fisher said there was nothing to warrant overturning the tender.
Fisher said the flaws were corrected so that work could continue.
The forensic report had been forwarded to the complainants, and would be sent to the city to finalise, he said.
Former chief executive Rashid Toefy, who resigned in April, was exonerated by an independent hearing of any wrongdoing.
But Steven Lukey, a consultant who worked on the earlier stages of the project and who has raised concerns about the way the expansion was handled, is concerned that complainants were given a “draft” report that would be finalised only after the annual financial statements and auditor-general’s reports were signed off before yesterday’s AGM.
This placed the integrity of the financial statements in question, he said. - Cape Argus