PHILLIP NKOSI, Pietersburg | Tuesday
A SHOCKING picture of mismanagement of about 54 state-owned nature reserves in the Northern Province has emerged, with seven reserves running up a deficit of more than R10m within three years.
Officials also failed to maintain reserve fences and combat poaching, which has driven the region’s indigenous parrots to the verge of extinction and is also threatening local vultures and trees such as the Transvaal Teak in the Bushbuckridge, Mangwasi, Witvinger and Thabina reserves. Government estimates at least 70% of some endangered bird species are held in illegal captivity awaiting export or to serve the muti trade.
Management slipped so much at the Letaba Ranch that its income plummeted from R980_000 in 1997 to just R4_000 the next year, said provincial Auditor-General Steve Lekutle in a scathing 29-page report for the year ended March 1999.
The department of environmental affairs blamed the drop in revenue on the freeze on trophy hunting that was implemented in late 1997.
At Manyeleti Game Reserve, which is considered one of the last untapped Big Five reserves in Africa, the main government camp saw a drop in guests from 41_273 in 1996 to 11_044 in 1997.
Yet private camps in the reserve were able to increase the number of visitors from 3_144 to 4_661 over the same period, Lekutle said. He said that one private camp in Manyeleti generated about R4,2m per year, but was charged only R36_000 rent.
But facilities run privately in the government’s main camp in Manyeleti did not pay rent because contracts had not been renewed as far back as 1994.
Government’s only explanation for the poor management, Lekutle said, was that it was forced to spend 90% of its budget on staff salaries and did not have enough money to send staff into the field to actually do their jobs.
The department admitted to Lekutle that it had not allocated funds for maintenance or marketing at any of its reserves for “several years” and conceded that valuable tourism infrastructure was therefore crumbling away.
Lekutle dismissed budget constraints for some of the problems, such as a persistent lack of transport, and notes that the province was given R2,9m for conservation vehicles between 1996 and 1998 but that officials only bothered buying one car with the money.
Officials then used a shortage of transport as an excuse for not maintaining reserve fences, combating poaching, inspecting reserves or meeting with communities. – African Eye News Service