The British High Commissioner in South Africa Ann Grant officially handed over the keys of the British High Commission building in the parliamentary precinct here on Friday morning — and it will now become part of the parliamentary complex.
The keys were handed over to South African Public Works Minister Stella
Sigcau, who noted that the building had been completed in 1937 — the year she was born in Pondoland. She confirmed that the building had been bought for R6,35-million which had been paid to the UK. The land had been registered in the name of the South African government.
Grant told an assembled crowd in Parliament Street — which is closed to general traffic — that the British Government purchased the site for 7 500 pounds in 1937 and spent 22 000 pounds erecting the building.
However, she said in the mid-1960s when plans were drawn up to turn the area into the parliamentary precinct, the South African and British governments ”discussed the possibility of our moving to a different site nearby, just outside the precinct”.
”While the British Government was in principle willing to move, no agreement could be reached over the financial aspects. I understand that while a figure was agreed in 1965 for the value of this building, it would have cost three times this amount for another suitable building to be built or renovated.”
”As the South Africa side would agree only, quite reasonably, to pay the market price for the property and the British side, equally reasonable, didn’t want to spend money on a new building when there was no need to move, there was an impasse and the idea was dropped.”
”So we didn’t move … other buildings went up around us and we were then put under pressure by the Nationalist administration in the 1980s to quit the parliamentary complex. At the time we believed we should hang on in there and
were urged by opponents of apartheid to stay put.”
She noted that a young African National Congress parliamentarian said to her soon after she arrived in South Africa almost three years ago: ”How would you feel if the flag of another country was flying in the grounds of the Palace of Westminster? No matter how friendly the country, the British would not want a foreign flag flying so close to the seat of their democracy.”
Grant said: ”And I agree, the South African Government has put no pressure on us to leave the parliamentary complex. They have been too polite to ask. But I sensed that it was time to go and opening the negotiations to sell was my idea.”
She said there were practical reasons for moving. The British no longer needed 1 000 square metres of office space. ”We no longer have to move our operation from Pretoria to Cape Town and back every six months as was the case only a few years ago.”
So with the need for less space — the offices of the High Commission were being combined with the British Consulate General offices in Riebeek Street — in downtown Cape Town. – I-Net Bridge