ALTHOUGH a number of Cape businesses - iKapa Tours, Kirstenbosch Gardens and Mc Donald's - have provided valuable assistance to the 213 senior tourists from Soweto who were abandoned by their tour guide, the public has responded poorly with a mere R5 890 raised after a fund was established by Cape Town Tourism (CTT) last week.
CTT's manager, Sheryl Ozinsky, has now issued a further urgent plea to the public to respond to the needs of the pensioners, many of who saved for years to afford what became an ill-fated trip.
A number of costs need to be covered, including a R193 000 hotel bill which is owed to the Kingsbury Hotel in Seapoint, since the owner allowed the pensioners to stay for the full duration of their tour.
"I think the public is asking itself, why should we pay for something and thereby allow the people or person responsible to get away with a potentially criminal act," says Dudley Gough, the hotel's owner.
He said that while a number of the shareholders feel that they would like to lay charges against the high-profile Soweto-based PAC politician who apparently left town with the pensioners' money, they will only take this decision once both sides of the story have been heard.
A public meeting was held in Soweto yesterday between the pensioners and the private tour guide in an attempt to straighten things out.
According to Didi Moyle, special adviser to the Minister of Tourism and Environmental Affairs, Mohammed Valli Moosa, the woman who acted as a private guide to the pensioners, also applied to the department for funds for a waste management project in Soweto.
The bank details for the CTT Stranded Pensioners Fund are: First National Bank, Adderley Street, account number 300 00028169, branch code 201409.
(Adele Mackenzie)
