BCM rams through R3.4m boxing deal

Chippa United denied their slice for now

A controversial R3.4-million sports sponsorship from Buffalo City Metro to former ANC youth league leader Ayanda Matiti was finally approved during a heated council meeting on Wednesday.
The matter has been outstanding since last month after three council meetings collapsed when some ANC and opposition parties did not attend the meetings in an effort to ensure the funding for the boxing tournament did not go through.
The ANC councillors who were previously divided on the matter showed a united front on Wednesday after the party’s provincial executive committee on Sunday instructed its councillors to support the R3.4m funding for an event that took place in July.
The “5th Annual celebrations of Madiba as a boxer” tournament took place on July 27 in East London.
Commotion broke out during Wednesday’s meeting after the DA called for a division on the item which would have seen each councillor record if they were for or against the proposed funding.
However, disgruntled ANC councillors opposed the division and said there should be a vote on whether or not the division should be done and a vote on the funding by a show of hands.
Twenty-five councillors voted for the division and 55 councillors voted against the division. Fifty-five councillors voted for the approval of the funding subject to a legal scrutiny, while 26 voted against the approval.
DA caucus leader Terence Fritz said: “The DA’s concerns regarding this matter are unchanged. It would have been useful had an independent legal opinion been provided to council today. Council can’t, in our opinion, approve a matter such as this subject to an opinion being provided somewhere in the future.
“The DA can’t agree with such a sponsorship as this is a pure business venture. It is not clear that this is supported in legislation.”
EFF chief whip councillor Chumani Matiwane said they did not want to be party to approving the funding.
He said “maybe this is done to enrich comrades”.
While the ANC put on a united front on the Matiti funding, all hell broke loose when a new report calling for the funding of Port Elizabeth-based Chippa United Football Club was tabled.
The report sought approval for a new multi-million rand memorandum of agreement between BCM and the club.
The deal proposed that Siviwe “Chippa” Mpengesi’s club be paid R1.2-million for each of the club’s six matches in the Premier Soccer League (PSL).
Council chief whip Mzwandile Vaaiboom proposed that the agreement be approved but decreased from three financial years to two years and the metro goes on a fact-finding mission.
However his ANC comrades were quick to call him out and said it had to be a fact-finding mission on how other municipalities were sponsoring football clubs. ANC ward 25 councillor Crosby Kolela said: “I beg to differ from my colleague. You must start with a feasibility study first then follow with approval, not approving before facts.”
BCM Mayor Xola Pakati said: “When we fund Ironman with R10-million here no one jumps, no-one leaves the meeting, no-one calls for a division but the minute it is a sport that is beneficial to black or African people there are complaints. We should ask ourselves what informs that.”
In trying to maintain order council speaker said it was agreed that a fact-finding mission would be done first before the club is engaged again on a way forward...

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