By Donwald Pressly

The world's best project manager needed to be appointed to manage the 2010 Soccer World Cup project - including the building of a stadium at Green Point in Cape Town - who would report to both Cape Town Mayor Helen Zille and Western Cape premier Ebrahim Rasool, the mayor said today.

Speaking at a business breakfast at the Cape Town Convention Centre - with Rasool - Zille said there was no need for a special national minister in charge of the World Cup or for a mayoral committee member for that matter - but there was a need for cooperation by the various levels of government.

Such a project manager must meet with the two leaders regularly. "We need to get him or her out here," she told the crowd.

Noting that transport planning for the soccer tournament was the city's responsibility but operations were the responsibility of the province, she said such a project manager "needs to be the world's best implementation manager".

Zille noted that planning was a democratic exercise but implementation "comes closer to a dictatorship".

Rasool said it was imperative that the stadium project was successful as it would be the "cheese in the trap" as it had a budget of some 2.8 billion rand.

Beyond that it has already attracted 1.3 billion rand in upgradings of Cape Town airport and 3.5 billion rand would be spent on public transport. On top of all that Dubai World was spending some 14 billion rand on the V&A Waterfront.

Spending could be as high as 21 billion rand by 2010, said the premier.

Asked if the stadium was definitely going to happen, Zille said she would know by the end of the week. "I cannot bankrupt the city, nor can I in terms of the law sign contracts if we do not have the money."

Noting that Fifa had indicated that there would be no Cape Town leg if the stadium was not built at Greenpoint, she said the budget for the stadium was at one point one billion over the budget. In terms of the Municipal Finance Management Act she could not spend money the city did not have.

There was only a 5% margin for contingencies - and she noted that the Wembley Stadium had run at 100% over initial costings.

There was still a shortfall of 180 million rand in the budget, Zille said, noting that she had held discussions with businesses including Investec which had thought out the box about the project. This amount may seem like a little but it was a huge burden for the city to carry and she would not allow that legacy.

She had approached the national Treasury which had said it was not able to provide this funding - although she pointed out it was national government which had signed the contract with Fifa.

Rasool noted that it was "worthwhile to put the cheese [the stadium] in the trap" otherwise Cape Town would "become a backwater", but Zille retorted that national, provincial and local government would have "to hold the [financial] line" - not just local government.

Asked if Cape Town would cope with the World Cup - in June and July 2010 - Zille said: "We are committed to making 2010 a success... but we have to understand the enormity of the challenge. I tend to be pessimistic... we are looking at every possible glitch upfront." She said she did not want to land a new and alarming valuations bill at the door of ratepayers after 2010 as a result of debts built up related to the project.

But Rasool said: "We are going to do it." Referring to various governments working together - including his African National Congress (ANC) led provincial government and the Democratic Alliance-led city government - he said: "There is an understanding that we are interdependent. We have got to make it work."

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