A statue of King Shaka Zulu ka Senzangakhona to be built north of Durban will be ”very high” but not 106m tall, the KwaZulu-Natal premier’s office said on Monday.
Logan Maistry, spokesperson for Premier S’bu Ndebele, said the exact height and cost of the statue cannot be determined until architects complete the design.
On Saturday, it was reported that the statue would cost R200-million to build and was expected, at 106m, to be 13m higher than the Statue of Liberty in New York.
Maistry said this was incorrect as there was no cost estimate yet. ”All I can say is that it’s going to be a very high statue.” he said.
He was not sure when architects would complete the design, but it would be ”quite soon”.
Last week, in his State of the Province address, Ndebele announced that a memorandum of understanding had been concluded with a Dubai-based developer for the erection of the statue.
He suggested that the statue, to be funded by the private sector, would become a tourist destination like the Statue of Liberty and the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
The Weekender newspaper reported that a feasibility study had estimated that the statue would attract 4 000 presumably paying visitors a day. It will be built near the resort village of Blythedale, 90km north of Durban. — Sapa