National Coloured Congress (NCC) president Fadiel Adams, who was forced to apologise to Cape Town City manager Lungelo Mbandazayo by the Equality Court, says he has put the hele debacle behind him.
The court ordered him to say sorry to Mbandazayo last week after finding him guilty of making racist statements on social media.
During several Facebook Live broadcasts in February and March last year, Adams referred to Mbandazayo as being “from the Eastern Cape”.
Judge Nobahle Mangcu-Lockwood of the Western Cape High Court determined that Adams’ usage of the term was a racist cliche depicting Mbandazayo as inferior, rather than a neutral geographic reference.
The NCC leader was ordered to remove the posts and issue a public apology.
On Monday he issued a statement in which he formally said sorry to Mbandazayo and retracted his offensive remarks.
Adams said that he had “momentarily lost sight” of the principles of integrity, respect and dignity as well as the judicial authorities.
“I hereby unconditionally, without any qualifications, tender my sincere apology to the Honourable Mangcu-Lockwood and Mr Lungelo Mbandazayo for any offending remarks I made during aforementioned social media post,” Adams said.
“I hereby retract the comments I made and acknowledge that they were completely unjustified and uncalled for.”
Adams and Mbandazayo bumped heads in 2018 when a contract for repairing staircases in several residential flats was cancelled.
Adams must also pay for Mbandazayo’s legal costs.
The City of Cape Town had not responded to queries by deadline yesterday.
byron.lukas@inl.co.za