The new Tourism Equity Fund (TEF) that has been announced by government to help new BEE-compliant companies to enter the tourism industry is ill-conceived and totally inappropriate at this time. And it is certainly NOT welcomed by the industry, as claimed in the headline story of TN on January 28.
While I am all in favour of transformation, there could not possibly be a worse time for new businesses to enter the tourism industry during a rampant pandemic that has no end in sight. This initiative will lead to failures and depletion of the R1,2bn that has been set aside for this project. The plan has little prospect of achieving its objective at this time, not to mention the corruption that will inevitably contribute to the draining of the fund.
What is needed now is support for the previously successful surviving travel and tourism entities with established infrastructure and management. Those businesses have been battered as a consequence of the virus and the delay/failure of insurance underwriters to meet their contractual compensation obligations. This has cost thousands of previously secure jobs, more than 80% of which were black employees, most of whom are sadly now destitute. Those are the people who need help right now, not new start-up tourism businesses!
I presume there will be some basis on which government will monitor and measure the success of its crazy misguided TEF programme, and I have no doubt that my assessment of the situation will prove to be accurate.
Gavin C. Simpson
Group Managing Director
Holiday Holdings International (Pty) Ltd
