Tourism Minister Patricia De Lille refuted claims that South African Tourism had irregular tender procurements, to the tune of R100 million, to host flagship trade events including Meeting Africa and Africa’s Travel Indaba. (David Harrison)
Parliament’s portfolio committee on tourism says South African Tourism has underperformed in its mandate to market the country and drive economic growth.
“With the organisational performance of South African Tourism (SAT) for the period under review [2024-25], it seems that the organisation does not fully appreciate the importance of the role it has to play in driving economic growth and creating job opportunities,” committee chairperson Ronalda Nalumango said on Tuesday.
“It is grossly unacceptable that for the fourth quarter, South African Tourism only achieved 89% of its 55 targets while overspending by R24.1 million on its allocated budget. This depicts 101% over expenditure of R1.45 billion of the R1.43 billion budget that was allocated to SA tourism,” Nalumango said, during a briefing by the agency on its fourth quarter performance report for 2024-25.
“It should be noted that the reported information is the combined efforts of the private sector and government through South African Tourism. It is therefore of paramount importance that South African tourism takes its mandate seriously and improves on its financial and non-financial performance.”
In 2024, the tourism sector contributed 8.8% to South Africa’s economy, valued at about R616 billion, and created 1.68 million jobs.
Based on the current performance, the sector has the potential to contribute 12.8% to the country’s economy by 2030 and create 2.23 million jobs, said Nalumango
International tourist arrivals increased by 5.1% to 8.9 million, with foreign spending contributing R91.6 billion to the economy. Domestic tourism also rose, with overnight trips increasing by 6.2% to 40.2 million and spending going up by 12.8% to R137 billion.
South African Tourism came under fire last week over allegations of corruption and irregular tender procurements, to the tune of R100 million, to host flagship trade events including Meeting Africa and Africa’s Travel Indaba.
Tourism Minister Patricia De Lille refuted these claims in a statement last week, saying that no such tender was finalised or awarded, and that two firms — Chapu Chartered Accountants and Abacus Financial Crime Advisory — were hired to investigate the process.
“Their findings were received, reviewed and informed internal consequence management actions. I have been informed by South African Tourism that the cost of both audits were less than R1 million,” De Lille said.
“Officials implicated in procedural violations were removed from procurement committees as part of an internal disciplinary process initiated in 2024. Disciplinary processes are under way.”
Last year, the minister removed two members of the agency’s executive — retaining them as board members only — who subsequently resigned along with four other board members. She cited her concerns about the number of meetings the board had held during the first half of 2024.
De Lille had appointed the new board in February 2024 after dissolving the previous one in April 2023 following its controversial proposals to spend R910 million sponsoring UK football club Tottenham Hotspur.
The parliament portfolio committee said that during the period under review, South African Tourism underperformed in four of its five programmes.
It achieved 75% of its corporate support targets with R2.6 million underspent, and 92% of its business enablement targets with R3.1 million underspent. In leisure and tourism marketing, it met 95% of targets but overspent by 55.9%. The business events programme met all eight targets, while the tourist experience programme met two of three targets with R11.8 million underspent.
“This performance is a serious cause for concern as the entity receives more than 50% of Vote 38 [the budget allocation for the tourism department] but it is failing to achieve its targets and underspending in almost all set targets,” said Nalumango.
“It’s also of serious concern that SAT did not achieve all the targets in programme three but are reporting to us that they overspent R55.9 million. The performance in programme four also does not make sense — SAT achieved all their targets but underspent 23.7%. In fact there are many things that do not make sense in the fourth quarter performance.”
She suggested that the agency does not have effective internal controls to track its financial and non-financial performance, and that it needs to “seriously” address issues relating to the internal audit function.
“Internal audit function should not just be directed towards the auditing process by the auditor general but should assist the organisation during the in-year execution of its mandate against the set targets and financial management.”
Board members will need to improve their oversight and consequence management to hold executives accountable, said the agency’s chairperson, Gregory Davids.
“We do have quarterly board meetings, and through our board sub-committee meetings we are interrogating all of these aspects [including] performance reports.”
First, we start with our annual performance plan for the year, which we use as our framework to keep the executives accountable … Consequence management in certain areas where there is huge non-performance has taken place.”
“As a board we are listening to portfolio committee members, there are areas we as a board must improve, but we are trying to, through our committees and regular meetings, to hold our executives accountable,” he added.