Property Owners welcome Jordaan’s appointment as PE Mayor
The South African Property Owners Association (SAPOA) has welcomed the appointment of SA Football Association (Safa) President, Danny Jordaan as the new Mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality, Port Elizabeth.
The need to strengthen dialogue and the overarching relationship between government and the private property sector has become imperative, not only for real estate players to get their projects off the ground and their voices to be heard, but to assist the public sector to bolster economic growth.
This is something SAPOA understands and is actively rallying behind, namely through its highly successful “Meet the Mayor” campaign series.
Neil Gopal, CEO of SAPOA today told SA Commercial Prop News that we look forward engaging with the mayor as soon as possible.
"Given his experience with the World Cup, I believe Jordaan is someone who will get things done politically. He is also from PE which is a very positive,” says Gopal.
He adds that SAPOA would implore him to deal with maladministration and factionalism which has for some time now troubled with Metro.
"Our concerns are however are that this may be a short term stint gearing up for the 2016 local government elections,” says Gopal.
"We need someone in there for the long haul so that the confidence of the citizens and business is not shattered once again," concludes Gopal.
SAPOA was established in 1966 by the leading and large property investment organizations to bring together all role players in the commercial property field and to create a powerful platform for property investors.
Today its members control about 90% of all commercial and combined portfolios in excess of R500 billion.
The Fifa “laundry”
And while Jordaan, who is also president of the South African Football Association (Safa) was being sworn in, the world was still reeling from news of the arrest of FIFA officials in relation to a corruption probe involving the word soccer body.
Jordaan is widely credited for helping to secure the hosting of the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa.
Global agencies are investigating the awarding of the 2018 and 2022 world cups as well as claims that a bribe of $10 million was paid to secure the 2010 world cup in South Africa.
Jordaan has not yet commented on the arrest of Fifa officials and the Swiss and United States (US) investigations into allegations of racketeering, corruption and conspiracy.
Dozens of soccer officials are in Switzerland this week for the FIFA congress and presidential election, and Jordaan was expected to fly out to join them shortly after his inauguration.