-
Tourism Minister Patricia De Lille.
Political parties in the Tourism Portfolio Committee want Minister Patricia de Lille to reinstate the South African Tourism Board, which she dissolved last month.
However, de Lille insists that she stands by her decision to dissolve the board.
The committee’s chairperson, Ronaldo Nalumango, says she will seek legal advise on the legality to reinstate the board as there are conflicting reasons for dissolving it.
A nine-hour marathon meeting to try and get to the bottom of the board’s dissolution took place, where the contentious issue was the suspension of the SA Tourism Board CEO, Nombulelo Guliwe through a round robin vote.
This after the Board Chairperson, Professor Gregory Davids resigned a day earlier leaving the board without a chairperson and deputy chairperson.
The board elected to nominate a board member, who could communicate their decision as they were pre-assured to conclude financial statements that warranted consequence management against Guliwe.
“There is a procedure in the Tourism Act that prescribes that in the event that you want to have a special meeting, there is a procedure that you must follow and that is what I have raised. Also in terms of the procedure, nowhere in the act does it make provision or reference to a representative of the board,” says de Lille.
Former Board member, Lawson Naidoo, says, “The letter that then came from the minister on the 19th of August to dissolve the board used a different reason to dissolve the board. It was no longer an unlawful resolution, it was now an unlawful meeting. We were never asked to respond to an issue of an unlawful meeting. So, we were never given an opportunity to be heard and on that ground alone, the minister’s decision to dissolve the board has no validity.”
The committee appeared to be baffled by de Lille’s focus on the board action rather than disciplining the suspended CEO.
Chairperson of the Tourism Committee, Ronaldo Nalumango, says, “The minister ignored substantive issues of governance and financial mismanagement when dissolving the board. The new board must deal with the suspension of the CEO. It should be noted that the board inherited the CEO who was appointed (on) the same day as them. The caution is that the CEO has a chequered past as material irregularities of R4.2 million happened under her tenure as CEO.”
De Lille appears before Tourism Portfolio Committee
