Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Third time lucky for minstrel parade?
Colourful troupes to take to city streets to belatedly mark Tweede Nuwe Jaar
AFTER a drawn-out tiff with Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille, it’s all systems go today for the city’s minstrels and their twice-postponed Tweede Nuwe Jaar parade.
Minstrels are travelling from across the city to start their colourful annual parade in central Cape Town, with plans to begin lining up in Keizersgracht from 10am.
Kevin Momberg, chief executive of the Cape Cultural and Carnival Committee (CCCC), said troupes would congregate outside the City Hall by noon, where they would be addressed by “ministers, dignitaries and the chairperson of the National Lotteries Board”.
People travelling into town should be aware of several road closures that will affect the central city from 10am to 11pm today. Among the main traffic arteries affected are Adderley, Buitenkant and Darling streets, Keizersgracht, and Strand and Wale streets, along with a number of smaller roads linked to these streets.
City officials are expecting as many as 60 000 people to turn up to watch the popular parade.
Traditionally, minstrels gather in central Cape Town to mark Tweede Nuwe Jaar, a day of celebration for slaves that lived in the colonial Cape.
The carnival was initially planned for January 3, but was postponed as the local Muslim community celebrated the birth of Prophet Muhammad on that day.
It was then moved to January 5, but cancelled hours before the event was to due to start for logistical reasons. A blame game ensued between minstrel organisers and De Lille.
This week there was more trouble when De Lille issued a statement claiming that minstrel bosses tasked with organising the parade had not paid service providers.
De Lille warned: “If the event does not go ahead, we will take steps to reclaim the money we have given them to organise their event.”
De Lille had also called for an audit of the R2 million the city gave the CCCC to organise the parade and three other festive season events. The city also offered R1.6m in services for the event.
The provincial Cultural Affairs and Sport Department also gave the CCCC R2.35m towards organising the events.
Momberg told Weekend Argus they agreed to pay service providers R257 000 for toilets and fencing. They had agreed to pay them on the day that De Lille publicly raised the issue of non-payment.
“We cannot understand why the mayor felt it necessary to show this much interest in the dealings between us as, the event organiser, and our service provider. She didn’t even consult with us,” said Momberg. “She wants to discredit us. Maybe it’s because we support the ANC.”
Momberg is also chief executive of the Cape Town Minstrel Carnival Association, which has 40 signed-up minstrel troupes. It backs the ANC and its troupes participated in last weekend’s ANC 103rd anniversary celebration at Cape Town Stadium.
It is the first year that minstrels have been given money to organise their own parade and carnival. In previous years, the City of Cape Town and private companies organised the event.
Momberg complained that since they were handed the event, at a late stage and with a budget “considerably less than which the city ran the event on, there has been an air of sabotage in much of the city’s dealings with us”.