IFP wants Durban elephant sculpture

2010-11-09 17:07

Durban – The IFP has urged the eThekwini municipality to give it one of the city's three elephant statues, instead of destroying it.

"Our understanding is that the one elephant will be destroyed completely; which in our view will be a waste of resources and energy,” Inkatha Freedom Party caucus chairperson in the eThekwini municipality, Mduduzi Nkosi said on Tuesday.

Instead of destroying the elephant, the municipality should hand it to the IFP, since the animal was part of the party's logo.

“We are prepared to remove it from its current site to our offices in Ulundi at our cost, should we be allowed to have it.”

Three elephant statues, to be placed at the city's Warwick Avenue interchange, were designed for decoration of the City of Durban for R1.5m. ANC members in the municipal council however objected, seeing them as an IFP symbol.

Nkosi said he wrote a letter to municipal manager Mike Sutcliffe on October 15 urging him to give the statue to the party. The move following the eThekwini council's resolving on June 3 to use only one elephant, instead of the three already erected, and add four more animals to make the Big Five.

Humane gesture

"We believe that acceptance of this request would be a humane gesture which would make a contribution to the on-going efforts at improving relations between the IFP and ANC."

Nkosi said following his letter, Sutcliffe had told him he was going to discuss the matter with the municipality’s speaker James Nxumalo.

The municipality was not immediately available for comment.

ANC regional secretary James Nxumalo said in June: “The matter was not handled properly. There was no consultation with the councillors before they were constructed.”

The ANC wanted the interchange to have statues of all Big Five animals, not just elephants.

“This does not mean that we don’t like elephants.”

- SAPA