Cecil John Rhodes might soon have a new home.
UCT says it has received four offers from parties who are willing to take the controversial statue off their hands.
The statue could be relocated to a former presidential residence
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;mso-fareast-language:
EN-GB;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA">– the Groote Schuur homestead in the city, reports the Cape Argus.
The statue was in safe storage after it was violently removed from UCT’s upper campus on April 9 last year.
UCT was still in the process of applying to Heritage Western Cape (HWC) for its removal.
In a report compiled by heritage specialist Ashley Lillie on behalf of UCT, and dated November 11, the four offers to house the statue came from the Crow Foundation in the US, the owner of a series of properties adjacent to the Cheetah Foundation at Paardevlei in Somerset West, the Nooitgedacht Estate near Stellenbosch and the South African Institute for Heritage Science and Conservation (SAIHSC) at Twee Riviere, Langkloof.
The report says the Crow Foundation was willing to pay for the relocation of the statue to a sculpture garden in Texas “that includes works of Winston Churchill and Vladimir Lenin on condition that the Foundation would become the owner of the statue”.
The SAIHSC has proposed the relocation of the statue to its campus “where it may serve the purposes of education and research”.
UCT is apparently in favour of the statue being relocated to the Groote Schuur homestead.
The homestead, “given its position on the Estate bequeathed to the nation, warrants serious consideration”.