Cape Town - The squabble over the auctioning of Nelson Mandela’s iconic prison cell continued at the weekend, with the Robben Island Museum (RIM) saying the organisers, CEO SleepOut Trust, provided the media with “inaccurate and misleading information”.
RIM spokesperson Morongoa Ramaboa stood firm that the auctioning of Mandela’s cell on Robben Island to raise money for a project which a winner would be allowed to spend a night on Madiba’s prison cell, was never a consideration.
There was also no misunderstanding as the draft contract was “clear”, she said.
CEO SleepOut trustees, who sent a collective statement, insist they have been meeting with RIM since last year, where all of the campaigns relating to the event were mutually strategised and a green light was given for the event before they decided to postpone it last month.
“In March 2018, the CEO SleepOut Trustees visited Robben Island to meet with the Robben Island Board. The project was given exclusive use of the required infrastructures at Robben Island to see the event come to fruition, including the exclusive use of the Robben Island ferries after the last public ferry at 14:00 on the 18th of July.
“Access to their vehicles on the island, access to their tour guides, who are all former prisoners, access to water and electricity, and access to the lime quarry and a night tour of the island,” the trust said.
The trust said the decision to postpone the event was because it was approached by an international consortium last month who proposed that the date of the Robben Island Edition of The SleepOut be moved to later this year to coincide with an international event targeting the same target market.
“At a meeting with this international consortium on 18 June to explore strategic alliances for possible collaboration a decision was made by the trustees to move the date of the event. The section of the website relating to the Robben Island event was then removed around this time period in order for the necessary updates to be made.
"No bids for the auction had been received by the CEO SleepOut Trust, either before or after the decision to postpone the event was taken.
"The logistics surrounding the event at the end of the year, including the location or event details, have not been confirmed,” the trust said.
Ramaboa said yesterday: “RIM would like to rectify some of the inaccurate and misleading information. The Philanthropic Collection met with the executive management team, not the RIM board, as alleged in their statement.
"Their proposal was submitted in March 2018, where their interest to make use of the Maximum Security Prison was requested.
"We reviewed their proposal and ensued negotiations from which a draft contract was developed but was never finalised and agreed upon.”
She said no exclusivity was on offer as outlined in the draft contract.
“Following their 20 June, 2018 communiqué to postpone the event to November 2018, contract negotiations ceased and there was no further interaction between RIM and the Philanthropic Collection.”
She said the evidence suggests that the Philanthropic Collection continued to advertise the event, including an “auction” for Nelson Mandela’s cell.
“As far as RIM is concerned, the auctioning of Mandela’s cell was never a consideration and given the current circumstances, we don’t expect negotiations to resume,” Ramaboa added.
CEO SleepOut said the event was to raise funds for a worthy cause, the Prison-to-College Pipeline Project (P2CP), which aimed at integrating prisoners back into their communities.
The P2CP movement is themed on a famous Mandela quote, “Education is the Most Powerful Weapon which you can use to Change the World”, and is one of the beneficiaries of funds being raised through two auctions taking place at Liliesleaf and on Robben Island as part of a series of events organised by the CEO SleepOut Movement.