By Simon Nare
The Department of Tourism and South African Tourism (SAT) received a harsh tongue-lashing from Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Tourism for failing to meet their respective targets in the past financial year.
Both entities appeared before the committee on Tuesday to present their annual reports ahead of the upcoming mid-term budget review.
SAT, in particular, came under fire for its poor financial management and lack of internal controls, as flagged by the Auditor-General.
In its briefing to the committee, the Auditor-General’s office raised serious concerns about the poor quality of SAT’s financial statements, weak record-keeping, and inadequate daily operational controls. It also cited vacant executive positions — including Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) — and instability within the board as key contributing factors.
These issues, the committee said, required urgent intervention from Tourism Minister Patricia de Lille.
Committee chairperson Ronalda Nolumango was scathing in her remarks, accusing both the department and SAT of failing in their core mandates.
Nolumango commended the department for achieving a clean audit for the second consecutive year and for spending its budget largely in line with its plans — with 92% of targets achieved. However, she criticised it for missing one of its key objectives: job creation.
“Job creation is one of the key priorities of the Government of National Unity,” Nolumango said.
“Failure to deliver on this target is a serious travesty by the Department of Tourism. It’s important for the department to explore innovative ways to create labour-intensive jobs.”
She urged the department to review how it implements infrastructure projects, noting that such initiatives could create hundreds of temporary jobs during construction and more permanent opportunities thereafter.
Turning to SAT, Nolumango said the entity continued to struggle with “a litany of challenges,” including several critical vacancies.
“Some of the challenges are due to vacant positions such as Chief Financial Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, and Company Secretary,” she said.
“This has led to poor performance, with the entity relying on acting officials in key roles. To say South African Tourism is failing in its core mandate is an understatement. The entity has received a qualified audit opinion for the second year in a row.”
Nolumango further criticised SAT for failing to deliver on its global marketing campaign despite receiving 50% of the department’s total budget, warning that this failure would have a snowball effect on job creation and other national priorities.
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