A hard-headed tycoon, a powerful sports politician, the Olympics , millions of rands at stake. Julian Drew looks at the battle over Cape Town’s bid to host the 2004 games
IT was a battle that even the feisty and influential Raymond Ackerman could never win. ——————In the end his feud with Sam Ramsamy, president of the National Olympic Committee (Nocsa) and complications caused by South Africa’s politics of transition may have cost the country it’s bid for the Olympics.
The bitter dispute between the self-made multi- millionaire, who created and controls the country’s largest family-owned company, and a former school teacher and swimming coach who spent 18 years in exile organising the international sports boycott of South Africa, came to a head this week.
The issues are complicated and made worse by the personality differences between the two men. The transition of the Cape Town city council to democracy left in doubt the question of who had authority for the bid. But Ramsamy and Nocsa were always going to win a showdown because they had the Olympic Charter, the ultimate guideline on these matters, on their side.
The clash between the two men developed in early 1993 during the national bidding phase, when Ackerman confronted Ramsamy over a postponement of the nomination date for South Africa’s candidate city.
Cape Town won the national nomination, based on its superior technical study, its potential to win the bid and the fact that the bid was privately funded and driven by Ackerman and others in the private sector, who would ensure their money was spent wisely. This was manifest in the sheer professionalism of Cape Town’s technical work and marketing, compared with that of Johannesburg and Durban, whose bids were financed with public money.
The bid was approved by the cabinet in September after a full audit of the technical proposals, marketing and financial feasibility by the Industrial Development Corporation. A month later it was passed by the Western Cape regional government.
Ironically, it was Ackerman’s leadership — one of the major factors in Cape Town’s success so far — that became the sticking point.
Ackerman is used to calling the shots at Pick ‘n Pay, but the Olympic bid he was leading called for diplomacy and tact. Ackerman’s autocratic management style brought many of the problems to a head.
Ramsamy admitted this week that if Durban or Johannesburg had won the national bidding, there wouldn’t have been any of these problems — as the private sector was not involved and Nocsa would have dealt directly with their city councils.
The conflict exploded over a draft contract Nocsa sent to the bid committee in September which, say council officials, required the city of Cape Town or its delegated authority to sign. It was returned with “City of Cape Town” replaced by the “Cape Town 2004 Bid Committee Trust”. The bid committee said it was acting in terms of the mandate it had from the city when it was formed.
When it was formed, the bid committee had representatives of all the main political and community organisations in the region, including the city council and mayor Clive Keagan. This council and the mayor have since been superceded by new interim local government
At the request of Nocsa, the bid committee ceased activities after its national nomination victory until it was approved by the new government. This happened in September and October last year — at which point city bureaucrats, acting under dubious authority since the local government was in a transitional stage, started to show an interest.
A tug-of-war began. Last Wednesday, a city council meeting proposed that the main Olympic sight be moved from Wingfield to Culemborg, near the city centre. Ackerman was furious and threatened legal action.
This precipitated an acrimonious four-hour meeting, brokered by Minister of Sport Steve Tshwete. It was announced afterwards that the city council would vote on whether it, the bid committee, or a newly created authority would sign the contract with Nocsa. Ackerman rejected this decision and resigned his position on the committee and the trust that controlled its funding.
He said he would only reconsider this decision if the council voted for his bid committee to negotiate with Nocsa over the contract as there were several clauses in the draft that he could not accept.
Ackerman said he had no intention of signing the ultimate host city agreement in 1997 on behalf of the city. The bid committee merely wanted to continue marketing and raising funds for the international bid. “We warned Nocsa about the problems that could arise in dealing with an interim local government structure and we requested that no documentation should be signed until after the local government elections in October,” he said.
The bid committee claimed that at a meeting in September last year agreement was reached with Nocsa on a marketing document but that subsequent claims from city bureaucrats that the process was illegitimate provided Ramsamy with the opportunity to oust Ackerman.
It was a grave error by Ackerman –he was confronting Ramsamy on an issue he could never win, rather than seeking an appropriate deal with the Cape Town
What is perhaps most remarkable about this whole sorry episode, say observers, is that a seasoned politician like Ramsamy should back bureaucrats operating in a political vacuum in his fight with Ackerman.
The draft contract already gives total control of the bidding process to Nocsa. Ramsamy will become vice- president of the bid committee and the committee’s membership and board will be subject to his approval.
After several agreements were reached between the bid committee co-chairmen and city officials and, each time, reneged upon, at a February 16 meeting of all concerned parties the city was given four weeks to get its house in order and sign the contract. A public slanging match which erupted in the Cape Town press was finally brought under control by president Nelson Mandela at a dinner in Cape Town on Saturday night. On Sunday, at a further meeting of all concerned parties, minister of sport Steve Tshwete was nominated as sole spokesman for the ensuing arbitration process.
The meeting had committed itself to a presentation by the bid committee to council, but on Wednesday Ackerman and his co-chairman, Ngconde Balfour, found they were not on the agenda. Instead, the council proposed changing the Olympic Village site.
Ackerman has now all but closed the door on his participation. At least one major sponsor suspended support for the bid.
The loser in all of this is the country’s bid for the Olympics. For not only has the Cape Town campaign lost the strength and resources of its private sector leadership, but the International Olympic Committee is going to be wary of a bid marked by internal feuding.