The DA has called on Minister Patricia de Lille to urgently account to Parliament following the precautionary suspension of SA Tourism CEO, Nombulelo Guliwe.
Instead of focusing on the serious allegations against the CEO, the Minister has focused on whether the Board had the authority to suspend her without a Chairperson, a distraction that risks letting the CEO off the hook.
The DA is committed to due process. However, it cannot be that the Minister attacks the board while giving no attention to serious allegations against the CEO. This forms part of an unfortunate pattern, where the Minister has abdicated responsibility for disciplinary issues in her Department, only intervening once the damage is done.
SA Tourism, which takes up the vast majority of the Department’s budget, has been a consistent problem for tourism in South Africa. Despite overspending on its already-significant budget, it failed to meet 11% of its performance targets last year. These are not the hallmarks of an agency in good health.
We cannot allow yet another year of underperformance from SA Tourism, at the expense of other job-creating programmes like Working on Tourism. Three years of acting CEOs, from 2021 to 2024, significantly destabilised the entity. The Minister must act quickly to steady the ship, by allowing an independent, transparent, and swift investigation to take place, and taking action accordingly.
The DA is in government to fight for jobs and growth. Tourism is vital to both, and if the Minister won’t make sure our entities are working, we will.