Wow. This is huge.
The contents of a previously confidential and completely fictitious City of Cape Town report which were revealed during routine business in the Western Cape High Court this morning look set to cause outrage across the city.
The report, commissioned late last year, outlines details of plans to move the Cenotaph from its present site on Adderley Street in the City Centre to a disused quarry on Chapman’s Peak Drive where it would be used as part of a hydraulic fracturing rig to extract the rich deposits of natural gas discovered at the site during preliminary survey work by the toll company Entilini last year.
The plan marries together three contentious issues which are described by the report’s anonymous author as “awkward problems which could prove potentially costly vote-wise at the next election, but which require addressing”. The author goes on to suggest that “tying the three together would likely limit the amount of negative PR generated by these issues should we address them separately”, but notes:
On face value, this plan makes good financial and political sense and makes the best of several difficult situations facing the City; namely, (a) that the position currently occupied by the Cenotaph is the preferred site for a MyCiti bus station, (b) that the City contract with Entilini requires that we must upgrade the Chapman’s Peak Drive toll plaza and a huge office park, and (c) that the natural gas deposits beneath Chapman’s Peak Drive are of such value that it would be foolish not to act upon them.
However, we should expect stiff opposition to each of these issues, given the historical significance of the Cenotaph, the emotional attachment of Hout Bay residents to Chapman’s Peak Drive, and the current negative publicity surrounding the process of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”).
The report suggests that certain environmental and financial points regarding the plans should be emphasised in media releases and interviews, including:
- The convenience and improved carbon footprint of public transport when compared to private cars.
- The recycling of the Cenotaph material and the return of those stones to their natural home in a quarry.
- The cleanliness of natural gas when compared to electricity from coal.
- The offset of expensive costs of new toll plaza and first stages of the Entilini office park through selling natural gas fracked from the Chapman’s Peak Drive site.
The confidential report appears to have been distributed to appropriate departments within the municipality.
City officials were unable to comment on the report at the time of writing.
Watch this one folks – I have a feeling we’re going to be hearing a whole lot more about it.