IN HIS 2017 Budget
Speech last month,
Finance Minister, Pravin
Gordhan, announced that
all suppliers of services to
government would be paid
within 30 days of delivery.
Although travel industry
players welcome Treasury’s
announcement, some
question whether this policy
will be enforced effectively.
Sailesh Parbhu, md
of XL Nexus Travel,
says improvements in
government payments to
suppliers have taken place
during the past few months.
He says government.
recently formed a special unit
within Treasury to deal with
outstanding payments and
payment delays. Any supplier
who is struggling to obtain
payment from government
can turn to this unit and their
issue will be escalated, says
Sailesh.
“It’s a slow process, and
suppliers need to follow the
proper procedures and submit
all the invoices and other
documents, but we’ve seen
great progress in the past
month.”
But, some industry players
have yet to see the benefits
from government’s efforts.
“The Minister’s rhetoric
sounds wonderful,” says Otto
De Vries, Asata ceo, “but
the travel industry has been
hearing the same promise
for over two years and, so far,
Treasury has not been able to
effectively enforce it.”
The Minister also said
in his 2017 Budget that
a travel policy framework
would be implemented
by April 1. “[The policy]
will standardise dealings
with travel management
companies through uniform
bid specifications, evaluation
principles and a common
remuneration model. The
policy is expected to save the
fiscus R1,3bn over the next
three years.”
Agents have yet to receive
the new travel policy. Otto says
there is massive uncertainty in
the travel industry about which
policy and which rates are
meant to be applied.
“We are still trying to engage
Treasury in a constructive
manner. We are constantly
putting out our hand in
friendship to support and
encourage a workable policy,”
says Otto.
In October 2016, the
government cancelled its
national tender for government
business, which would have
seen the creation of a pool
of a limited number preselected
TMCs. Sailesh says
government departments are
in the process of publishing
their own tenders based on
a suggested tender template
that takes the government’s
new cost containment
measures into account.
