Tourism body proves commitment to good use of budget

South African Tourism (Sat) says it has spent 72% of its budget for the 2024/25 financial year, with CEO Nombulelo Guliwe stating that this "demonstrates our commitment to budget optimisation".

- Anathi Madubela

This comes after reports that it had failed to spend its annual budget of R1.2 billion and might have to return more than R800 million to National Treasury.

Guliwe said the current management and leadership team was committed to interrogating costs and would not spend recklessly because of claims that it had underutilised its budget.

"Even inaccurate information about a non-existent 80% surplus will not coerce us into spending recklessly," she said. However, it is not clear what the budget was earmarked for.

R100m tender

The spending that Sat has disputed is the awarding of a R100 million event management tender to an inexperienced company for Meetings Africa and Africa's Travel Indaba.

Sat said an independent forensic investigation into the event management tender was initiated last month and was still underway.