Minister of Tourism, Patricia De Lille has appointed Dr Gregory Davids as the new Chairperson of the SAT Board and in the interest of transparency, the minister chaired a meeting last week where she made the announcement.
The announcement was concurrent to the demotion of both SAT Board Chairperson, Makhosazana Khanyile and Deputy Chairperson, Adv. Lizelle Dominique Jordaan following their zero response regarding the misuse of funds allocated to finance the meetings of the board.
“I hereby wish to update the public on changes to the South African Tourism (SAT) Board, as in recent months, I had become concerned with the number of meetings the board held and I had written to the SAT Board Chairperson asking for reasons why an excessive amount of meetings were held (27 meetings) in the first quarter of 2024 which was between March and June 2024.” said the minister.
Over the past few months, the minister along with the SAT board held a number of meetings as part of their mandate and responsibilities, with an allocated budget of R1.44million for board fees for the entire 2024/25 financial year, an amount aimed to pay for all board meeting attendance.
For this financial year, so far, close to R900 000 of the R1.44million was accrued by the SAT Board for 54 meetings from March and up until the first week of September 2024. This has since raised concerns around the excessive amount of board meetings held this year so far and the cost thereof; it further prompted the minister to write to both the SAT Board Chairperson and Deputy Chairperson, requesting them to make representations before she decided on their future roles on the board, but did bot respond to the call.
“I had requested in my letter that they provide information on why so many meetings were necessary. I had requested this information as these meetings have a direct impact on budget allocation and because the meeting frequencies were excessive. The SAT Board Chairperson and Deputy Chairperson did not respond to me on these questions in their reply.”
“I have therefore written to the SAT Board Chairperson, Ms Makhosazana Khanyile and Deputy Chairperson, Adv. Lizelle Dominique Jordaan on 9 September 2024 to inform them of their removal from these positions, effective immediately. They will retain their positions as ordinary board members.” said Minister de Lille.
