Cape Town will soon be home to the yacht of Alexei Mordashov, a Russian billionaire targeted by international sanctions. The luxurious boat should arrive around November 9, not without making waves. Because the town hall of Cape Town is led by the opposition party of the Democratic Alliance, which supports Ukraine in the face of the Russian invasion, while the South African government continues to display its neutrality. The mayor asked the government to prevent the boat from docking, without success.
With our correspondent in Johannesburg, Roman Song
” In our city there is no place for accomplices in Putin’s war “was moved, in a tweet, Geordin Hill-Lewis, the mayor of Cape Town. He wrote to Naledi Pandor, the Minister of International Relations, to ask her to block access to the yacht called “Nord”, a 142-meter long boat whose exorbitant price amounts to 500 million dollars.
I have asked Minister Pandor to block the entry of a R9 billion superyacht, owned and sailed by sanctioned Russian oligarch Alexey Mordashov, to Cape Town’s port.
There is no place in our city for accomplishments to, and enablers of, Putin’s war. https://t.co/yTqZGs1Eka pic.twitter.com/MAxOFf267t
— Geordin Hill-Lewis (@geordinhl) October 24, 2022
It belongs to Alexei Mordashov, the third richest man in Russia. Following the invasion of Ukraine, this businessman was sanctioned by the European Union, the United States and the United Kingdom. But these sanctions do not oblige, reacted the spokesman of the South African presidency. Pretoria defends a position of neutrality in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, with a slight leaning towards Moscow, which is a long-time ally of the African National Congress (ANC), the ruling party.
A friendship denounced by the Democratic Alliance (DA), the first opposition party. From the start of the war, the town hall of Cape Town was illuminated in the colors of Ukraine to symbolize its support. Its mayor is now worried about the reputation of South Africa. His country, already known according to him for its laxity in the face of money laundering and false corruption, would now be a land of welcome for those sanctioned.