In a media breakfast meeting this morning, the mayor of Mangaung Playfair Morule, revealed that the municipality will be purchasing 50 000 tickets, with state funds, for the FIFA 2010 World Cup and distributing them to his constituents. Not only is this an enormous expense for the municipality to cover, but it appears on the face of it that these tickets will be used to buy votes.

Apparently the mayor has indicated that 8 000 tickets will be bought for six different games. Even at the entry rate of R140 per ticket, 50 000 tickets would cost the municipality R7 million.
We believe that the FIFA 2010 World Cup will be a fantastic showpiece for South Africa, and will play a significant positive role in stimulating economic growth and the tourism sector for decades to come. However, we cannot support this blatant attempt to use the World Cup for political purposes.

There are numerous other areas in which the municipality ought to be investing these funds, and what criteria exactly will be used to decide who receives these tickets? How can we be sure that tickets will not be handed over as part of a shameful vote winning exercise?

How the municipality plans to purchase these tickets also raises questions, as the FIFA ticket purchasing system currently limits ticket buyers to four tickets per transaction, and requires personal details such as ID numbers and addresses. The Democratic Alliance would like to know whether the mayor will be putting his own name forward, or how he plans on purchasing this astronomical amount.

The municipality needs to rethink this purchase as a matter of urgency and allocate the funds to where it is needed most - service delivery for the people!