Please find attached English soundbite by Haseena Ismail MP.
– Ghost assets, missing servers, and losses due to potential criminality exposed.
– Leaked information indicates Minister De Lille is losing control of her Department.
– DA calls for Minister to account for various failures under her watch.
The DA will call Minister Patricia De Lille to account before Parliament for the latest scandal in her Department: critical assets unaccounted for, missing servers, and a new external investigation into fraud.
The DA will request that the Portfolio Committee on Tourism be provided with the internal verification asset report for scrutiny, and will further request the Minister and the DG account to Parliament for the steps they are taking to ensure that those responsible for this mess are dealt with.
What is worse is that De Lille was not even aware of these issues or the investigation into them. She is a Minister out of touch with her Department and distracted by matters of internal conflict, such as the SA Tourism Board debacle, too busy to appreciate the seriousness of criminality under her nose.
The Sunday Times has revealed that De Lille learned of the serious fraud investigation only through media queries. It is concerning that this sensitive information has found its way to the media before the Minister, speaking to a lack of internal oversight and Ministerial function. This is indicative of a Minister who is losing control of her department.
Minister of Tourism Patricia de Lille must obtain the internal asset report and account to Parliament for the catastrophic failures it has revealed.
De Lille now faces multiple Parliamentary accountability probes:
1. Her decision to dissolve the SA Tourism Board: After the DA’s successful PAIA appeal, the Minister stated that she would share with the DA both the written and verbal legal advice she relied on to disband the Board, but the DA was later informed that no written legal advice exists.
2. The DA also highlighted how her decisions and alleged interference in the Board’s dismissal created a leadership vacuum at SA Tourism, leading to the withholding of millions of Rands worth of TOMSA levy funds.
At the same time, SA Tourism is subject to a Presidentially-assented inquiry by the Special Investigating Unit.
The latest scandal indicates that the Department has ghost assets that exist only on paper but not in reality, servers that have gone missing, the unauthorised sale of assets, and financial losses due to this suspected criminality.
Tourism is supposed to create jobs. Instead, this Department is creating losses, risks, and embarrassment. South Africans deserve a Department that can count its assets before it asks for a larger budget.