The Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund on Tuesday denied having received a donation from Swiss company Nestle or that it even had an association or a relationship with the company.
The Fund was reacting to recent media reports that there was a connection between it and Nestle. In a statement it reiterated the position it took in 2000 regarding a donation Nestle proposed to the Fund. In July 2000 the Fund was approached by Nestle, to contribute towards its Aids Orphan Appeal, a theme it had adopted for Mandela’s birthday celebration with the children in that year.
”However given the Nestle debacle in relation to HIV/Aids infected mothers and their campaign on promoting formula milk as opposed to breast milk and the disadvantages they put out publicly regarding breast feeding, the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund declined the donation.”
A report in the Sunday newspaper Rapport said a documentary television programme on former president Nelson Mandela broadcast by the BBC in London last Wednesday included a section where British filmmaker Richard Attenborough visited Mandela at a hotel in London.
In the documentary, Mandela: The Living Legend, Attenborough told Mandela how he could raise more money for his fund, and said that if he (Mandela) asked Nestle for half a million or so, he would ”get it just like that”.
He also told Mandela’s personal assistant Zelda la Grange that he would get Nestle to phone Mandela the next day because ”they were so desperate to right the wrongs of their past and they, like millions of others, regarded Mandela as a hero”.
The report said Attenborough had been severely criticised by officials of the United Nations’ Children’s Fund (Unicef) for trying to persuade Mandela to accept a donation from Nestle, and would be speaking to him about it in the near future.
The filmmaker said the wrong impression had been given because his conversation with Mandela had not been broadcast in its entire context. Attenborough, an ambassador for Unicef since 1987, denied having received any money from Nestle on behalf of the Fund.
Nestle, for its part, said it had no direct contact with Attenborough. – Sapa