Durban city manager Mike Sutcliffe. Durban city manager Mike Sutcliffe.
“The colour of the ocean is blue, I don’t know where this DA thing came from.”
That was the response of Durban city manager Mike Sutcliffe regarding the scuppering of plans to paint a blue line along 3km of the city’s beachfront to symbolise the impact of rising sea levels.
Sunday’s City Press hinted that the colour of the line had made ANC officials at the eThekwini Municipality “see red”, with certain officials wanting the colour of the line changed before the city would give the go-ahead.
Sutcliffe dismissed these claims saying there had been lots of “to-ing and fro-ing” around the event’s organisation, but the decision was a practical one.
The event dubbed Walk the Future, a walk from 10am on Sunday from uShaka Marine World, along OR Tambo (Marine) Parade to the Durban Tourism Information Centre at the intersection with KE Masinga (Old Fort) Road, is still scheduled to continue.
“The line would be drawn all over the place, including roads. We can’t be putting paint of a different colour on the road for safety reasons,” he said. He said the type of paint and the cost to remove it after the event had to be taken into consideration.
“The finish of the road might also be affected once the paint has been removed, possibly making the road more slippery when wet,” he said.
He said the organisers had been issued with the technical report last week. The walk itself, however, was not rejected, he said.
The social mobilisation project, which will be led by Premier of KwaZulu-Natal Dr Zweli Mkhize, will involve thousands of people joining him and Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, Minister of Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa and eThekwini Mayor James Nxumalo, as they symbolically walk the Blue Line.
“Its central message is to promote positive action and a call to everyone to get involved in helping us, and all the delegates we are honoured to be hosting in Durban this month, to help find practical solutions to climate change,” Mkhize said.
Strijdom van der Merwe, an artist commissioned to do the work, said he was told by organisers that the actual painting had been cancelled.
This was confirmed by Sharlene Versfeld, one of the publicists for the event.
He said he had visualised the concept and was disappointed that he could not see it through.
“Every drawing begins with a line so, as basic as it may seem I felt like this was my contribution to bringing attention to the impacts of global warming,” said the Cape Town-based artist, who would no longer be attending.
For more information on the event, go to walkthefuture on Facebook and @walkthefuture on Twitter.
kamcilla.pillay@inl.co.za