Fiona Macleod
The Kruger National Park had an operating profit of more than R10-million last year and is performing better than ever before, says its director, David Mabunda.
Mabunda released the financial results of the country’s premier game reserve over the past five years to the Mail & Guardian this week to counter hysteria about the Kruger’s finances in the wake of cash-flow problems experienced at the beginning of the year.
The figures show the park had an operating profit of R10,6-million last year, despite extensive flood damage. In the first two months of this financial year, the park already has an operating profit of R8,1-million.
“There is no truth in the rumour that Kruger is losing money through mismanagement,” says Mabunda. “Our organisation is growing stronger by the day.”
Kruger management has been under attack since the M&G reported on a cash crunch running into millions of rands in March. A restructuring programme dubbed “Operation Prevail” that has seen 513 employees lose their jobs has caused disgruntlement among staff, and the Democratic Alliance last week called for a ministerial investigation into allegations of “gross irregularities in the administration of the park”.
The financial figures show the park’s operating profit jumped more than R5-million, from R11,2-million to R16,3-million, after Mabunda took over as director in the 1998/99 financial year. The next year it leapt to R28,2-million.
Last year the figure dropped because of abnormal items such as flood repairs and a decrease in gross profit at Satara camp. It was the loss at Satara that prompted the DA to call on Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Mohammed Valli Moosa to appoint an independent inquiry.
“The DA is playing politics by dragging the park unnecessarily into a political battlefield with the ANC,” says Mabunda in a statement written in his personal capacity. “It is not the first time the DA has appointed itself as a mouthpiece of disgruntled and anti-transformation elements resisting change in South African National Parks.”
He points out it was a regular internal audit that picked up irregularities being perpetrated by the camp manager, the restaurant and shop managers at Satara. The steps taken to rectify the situation are available in last year’s draft audit report before Parliament’s public accounts committee.
“The DA has a representative on the committee and has the right to demand the specific financial statements of the park within that forum, and base its arguments on facts rather than the venomous shebboliths of disgruntled spoilt brats,” he says.
Mabunda adds that the cash crisis in February was due mainly to the park going into overdraft to pay for flood repairs. The crisis was quickly rectified when the government’s flood reconstruction programme started recompensing the park for these expenditures, and as tourist numbers started increasing in the following months.
“April to July are traditionally our good season, when it is very difficult for tourists to make bookings in the park.” The operating profit for April and May was R8,1-million, and when this balances out with the off-seasons the director estimates the operating profit for this year will be about R32-million.
Claims that service standards in the park are deteriorating as a result of restructuring are malicious sour grapes being spread by “spoilt brats”, he says.
“The claims are nothing but a smokescreen manufactured by anti-transformation elements acting in cahoots with the DA to divert attention from the retrenchments … Operation Prevail, although painful, is a necessary intervention to reduce human resources costs to enable us to invest more money into improving our infrastructure in order to compete on a world-class global economy level.”