Former board members have described the situation at the North West Parks and Tourism Board as dire.
They recently appeared before the Portfolio Committee on Economic Development, Environment, Conservation and Tourism in the North West Provincial Legislature.
The former board members painted a bleak picture of what they left at the entity during their stint.
According to them, while funds were delayed in some instances, poor leadership let the entity rely on government bailouts.
Recently, employees at the entity went on a strike to demand timeous salary payments and wage increments.
While faced with this dire situation, the former Board Chairperson Tshidi Mogale says the entity went on to spend millions to fund an event.
“In the R45 million, I will be able to pay salaries for December and January and March up until the end of the financial year, however, I am a bit challenged. As the Board, we have an event which we were told is a provincial event called Mahika Mafiheng…remember we were instructed from the department side that we pay for the marketing of the Mahika Mahikeng and that the department will reimburse the money and I asked him if this was budgeted for as this is the overall marketing of the event was budgeted for. However, we don’t have cash. The department said we should pay from our R45 million, and they will give us our R7 million.”
However, the Portfolio Committee was not convinced by this presentation.
Johanna Steenkamp of the Democratic Alliance says, ”I am disappointed because we do not have evidence, we do not have a report. Nothing was done in order to comply with the summons, apart from coming here and telling the committee that no, we don’t know. So, for me honestly, we could have asked for this report, because it was given the dates here February et cetera, we were asking for reports for evidence, not to come and explain. I was also hoping that we actually get some answers regarding finances and financial solutions but unfortunately, it was really vague.”
VIDEO | Situation at North West Parks and Tourism described as dire:
