By Simon Nare
The Portfolio Committee on Tourism has instructed the Tourism Department to increase funding for previously disadvantaged businesspeople and strengthen post-funding of their projects to ensure those projects are sustainable.
The instruction was issued during a sitting of the committee in the National Assembly where the department’s entities, the National Empowerment Fund (NEF) and the Small Enterprises Finance Agency (Sefa), appeared to account for different tourism development programmes they are responsible for implementing.
Committee chairperson Lungi Mngannga-Gcabashe told the entities that the department should provide additional funding in line with increasing demand and implement awareness programmes.
“NEF must also increase its own funding because it is clear that there is a demand for this support and should consider stretching the repayment period because tourism projects take long to break even,” the chairperson said.
On the Sefa presentation, Mnganga-Gcabashe said the entity should speed up processing of applications
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