After a month of sustained pressure and boycott, Spur’s Chief Executive Officer Pierre van Tonder finally gave up and issued a press release in which he acknowledged that Spur’s handling of the controversial racial incident in Johannesburg was wrong.
Van Tonder admitted that the matter could have been dealt with better. Despite Spur branches experiencing pressure across the country and Spur’s shares still tumbling, Van Tonder remains unmoving and does not want to give his personal apology because he has shown a white customer the door and rewarded the black customer with a free meal, While both did the same.
Although recognition is a step in the right direction, we are still waiting for Mr. Van Tonder to apologize, so we are still passing through to the next dining area.
Everyone forgets about a white man branded as racist, under threat; While the black customer was turned into a heroine, thanks to Van Tonder.
A UN supporter also proposes the following perspective: “Every Rand down in the share price is equal to R108million – so far it has cost the shareholders R320million’s of their wealth.”
The statement reads:
SPUR APOLOGY AND ACTION PLAN
April 27, 2017 – PRESS RELEASE
In the month since the widely publicized incident at Texamo Spur in The Glen Shopping Centre in Johannesburg, everyone at Spur has had time to reflect on our actions leading up to, during and after the event.
Spur would like to take this opportunity to unreservedly apologize to the South African public. Our response fell short of our own high standards. We should have done better. We expect it from ourselves to do better and we believe that the South African public deserve better.
It was an intense period of self-reflection for everyone at Spur, and with the wisdom of hindsight, we have decided to embark on a course of action to address the shortcomings in our response.
We have asked Prof. Elmien du Plessis of the Faculty of Law at North-West University (NWU) to convene a panel and draft guidelines for an in-depth investigation into all relevant aspects of the incident on 19 March 2017 and how it was handled. Prof. Du Plessis holds an LLD from Stellenbosch University, is a member of the Human Rights Committee of the NWU and an alumnus of the South African Research Chair in Property Law.
The panel will be completely independent and have full access to all facts and footage surrounding the event. The team will make recommendations to Spur on actions that should be taken to rectify the shortcomings in our response and improve our reaction to similar incidents in future.
Such an investigation will take time to conclude its work, and although we have impressed the need for urgency upon Prof. Du Plessis, it is important that she and the convened panel have the time to do a proper investigation. Additional details about the panelists and timeline will be made public in the coming weeks.
It is, however, the opinion of everyone at Spur that regardless of the outcome and recommendations of the panel, certain immediate steps are called for.
We have already embarked on a national program to increase the child-minder to child ratio in our Play Canyons during busy periods. We have also launched a formal re-education drive that will refresh and enhance the procedures and skills of our minders.
In the month since this incident, we have learned many lessons. We are implementing steps to ensure the safety of customers and personnel at our restaurants. Given the current socio-political climate in our country, regrettably, no company can foresee an incident like this happening. After the incident, Spur has already and will continue to move swiftly to provide key personnel with the necessary conflict resolution skills.
Read the original article in Afrikaans on Front Nasionaal SA – blad
South Africa Today – South Africa News
