Cape Town - Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille has defiantly defended honouring US President Barack Obama – saying she did not need President Jacob Zuma’s permission to do so.
On Friday, a US embassy official received a scroll giving the Freedom of Cape Town to Obama and his wife, Michelle, due to visit South Africa later this month.
It was handed to the US consulate’s chargé d’affaires Virginia Palmer.
De Lille said: “President Obama accepted it last year already – I have said this many times.”
On Sunday, a report quoted provincial ANC leader and Deputy Minister of the Department of International Relations and Co-operation Marius Fransman saying he had helped defuse the recent controversy by facilitating meetings between the City of Cape Town and various national departments.
This erupted when it was still believed Obama had not yet decided whether or not to accept the honour – which had prompted both the local ANC and Cosatu, and the Muslim Judicial Council, to publicly demand that he not accept.
But when asked about this, and whether the handover of the scroll on Friday had been in co-operation with national government, De Lille said: “We don’t need anyone’s permission – not President Jacob’s, not the minister of local government’s, or anyone’s.
“We’ve done this in terms of our policy (the City of Cape Town’s). Marius Fransman is talking nonsense. We don’t need permission as local government is an independent sphere.”
Obama’s honour makes him the eighth recipient of the Freedom of the City.
Previously honoured were:
* June 17, 1958 – William Duncan Baxter.
* June 17, 1958 – Sidney Warren Lavis.
* May 3, 1968 – Christiaan Neethling Barnard.
* August 31, 1984 – Owen McCann.
* September 5, 1988 – Richard Ernest van der Ross.
* November 27, 1997 – Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela.
* May 20, 1998 – Desmond Mpilo Tutu.
Explaining the internal city process, mayoral spokesman Solly Malatsi said: “The civic honours that can be bestowed are: Freedom of the City, Signing of the Civic Honours Book, Honorary Title of Alderman, Freedom of Entry into the City, and the Mayor’s Medal for Community Service.
“Once nominations have been submitted, they are referred to the rules committee, which will be assisted by the head of protocol in the office of the mayor,” Malatsi said.
The rules committee makes recommendations to council in accordance with the policy, except in the case of the Mayor’s Medal, in which the mayor will provide final approval.
“The Freedom of the City is conferred by ordinary resolution in council. All nominations are confidential until such time as the council has made a decision and the honouree has been informed of the honour to be bestowed,” Malatsi said by e-mail.
The proposal was made to the city’s multi-party rules committee, which approved it at a meeting on May 15 last year. It was put to council on May 28, last year, and approved.
Cape Argus