Nelson Mandela Bay has lost out on hosting one of the world’s largest freestyle sports events because the sports, recreation, arts and culture committee failed to hold meetings in time.
The city missed the February 15 deadline for the bidding process – which included a signature agreement – for the Fise World Series, an international BMX extreme cycling, skateboarding and mountain-biking competition which could have generated hundreds of millions of rands for the city.
The event, an Olympic qualifier, would have been held over two days in September.
This was revealed on Friday at a sports, recreation, arts and culture committee meeting, when the department’s executive director, Noxolo Nqwazi, broke the news to councillors.
The Fise World Series is an annual international tournament, featuring some of the world’s best athletes in BMX, skateboarding, mountain-biking, freestyle roller and wakeboarding.
At the Chengdu, China, leg of the series held in November 2018, 240,000 spectators converged on the event, with 300 athletes from 30 countries participating.
DA councillor Margaret de Andrade questioned how much money had gone towards bidding for the event, saying it was sad that Nelson Mandela Bay had lost out on the opportunity to host it.
“I think it’s extremely sad because we could have made quite a bit of money for the city if we had hosted this world series,” De Andrade said.
“We [must] just try and expand our view and not just be a sport city.
“If the Ironman comes once a year, we need other things inbetween.”
DA councillor Renaldo Gouws recommended to the committee that the metro approach the event organisers about the possibility of the city hosting the event in 2020.
“We’ve already spent money drafting the plans.
“We are marketing ourselves as the water sports and sporting capital of South Africa.
“Can we not approach them [Fise] and apologise for what has taken place, but then make sure also that we can possibly interest them in bringing this fantastic event to the city next year?
“We need to get it done because the areas that were mentioned are previously disadvantaged areas, and it won’t only benefit the beachfront but the entire metro,” Gouws said.
Permission to enter into an agreement was submitted to the portfolio committee for approval at a meeting scheduled for January 11.
However, the meeting was postponed to January 25 and eventually only convened on January 29.
A report from the sports, recreation, arts and culture committee said this had caused a delay in obtaining approval in time from the mayoral committee and council for the city to meet the February 15 deadline set by Fise.
The metro would have paid a R3.5m host fee, which included infrastructure cost, but a study by Grant Thornton, commissioned by the municipality, on the economic impact on the city found that total direct spend of the participants was projected at R34.6m, with spectator and other spending estimated at between R278.1m and R321.6m.
Possible venues considered for the event included the Motherwell Peace Park, Mqolomba Park in Uitenhage and Chevrolet Stadium in New Brighton, as well as venues in Walmer and Gelvandale.
Nqwazi said the city had lost out on hosting the event because the committee had moved its meetings twice and had run out of time in terms of meeting the bidding timelines.
“[This] is why we felt [it important] to bring an item that says [the] committee must note that we are now out of the bidding timeline and therefore out of the race.
“There are now other cities that are being considered by Fise,” Nqwazi said.
She said an R85,000 expression of interest fee had been paid by the metro to Fise.
This was a mandatory fee that took care of the Fise officials coming to do inspections and the preliminary work which had to be done.
Nqwazi said Fise officials came in December to do their technical inspections at the proposed locations.
They were accompanied by Bay officials and a meeting was held with the mayor and sports, recreation, arts and culture political head Lehlohonolo Mfana to get a sense of the requirements for the bid.
On-site inspections by Fise officials rated the Walmer sport fields, along Buffelsfontein Road, the best to stage the world series.
Tourism expert Peter Myles said there was a lot of competition internationally for events of this nature and the metro could not afford to lose out, especially considering the aim of positioning the metro as a maritime and watersports city.
“I just hope people learn from this because there’s a lot of competition and if you’re slow, you’re going to lose out to other cities,” he said.
“Events [such as this] expose first-time visitors to what we have and can promote especially Port Elizabeth because, until you actually experience this metro, there is an image which somehow is not attracting people.
“Any event held over a weekend fills up hotels as well as bed-and-breakfasts.
“Economic benefits come when you increase occupancy.”
Myles said promoting a place was no longer a word-of-mouth situation but word-of-photo, because people took selfies and shared those experiences with their followers on social media networks.
“Adventure tourism is one of the fastest growing sectors in the tourism industry, so anything aligned to it is what attracts people to places,” he said.
Mfana refused to say why the committee had failed to hold meetings or call a special sitting to pass the item.
But Nqwazi said Fise and the municipality had needed to sign an agreement by mid-February and the council had only sat on February 28.
“We cannot flout council procedures and [were already too late] because our first council meeting [of 2019] was only going to be in February and ... we should have signed an agreement by mid-February.
“We ran out of time.”