The office of the Auditor-General of South Africa has cited ongoing instability at Board and senior management level as a major reason behind SA Tourism’s failure to achieve a clean audit for a second consecutive year.
SA Tourism received a qualified audit outcome for the 2024/25 financial year with findings based on the “poor quality of submitted annual financial statements”.
The Auditor-General’s Senior Audit Manager Potegi Matladi presented the 2024/25 budgetary review and recommendations report for SA Tourism and the Department of Tourism in Parliament on October 14.
The audit found that annual financial statements submitted by SA Tourism were “not credible” and contained “multiple material misstatements”.
The root causes for the qualified audit were identified as a slow response by SA Tourism in implementing recommendations for improving audit outcomes and financial management as well as instability at Board level and vacancies in key management positions including Chief Audit Executive and Chief Financial Officer.
The Auditor-General pointed to significant governance instability experienced by SA Tourism since the start of the 2023/24 financial year. This included the dissolving of the former Board in April 2023 and the appointment of a three-member interim Board that managed governance until February 2024 when a new 10-member permanent Board was appointed. Further instability occurred in May 2025 with the resignation of the Audit Committee Chairperson, followed by the Board Chairperson’s resignation in August 2025.
The recent dissolution of the Board by Minister of Tourism Patricia de Lille, which followed the suspension of CEO Nombulelo Guliwe for her involvement in a material irregularity linked to an unauthorised prepayment of R4.1 million (US$236 600) facilitated in 2021, further destabilised the entity, added the Auditor-General.
“The ongoing instability at Board and senior management levels has rendered SA Tourism ineffective, necessitating urgent interventions by the executive authority to restore stability and strengthen governance.”
Answering questions from members of the Tourism Portfolio Committee, Matladi said De Lille’s dissolution of the Board halted progress in implementing consequence management of the material irregularity.
“There was an investigation around the material irregularity and that came with some recommendations that the Board was in the process of implementing. The Auditor-General will follow up with the new interim Board to keep up the momentum,” said Matladi.
The internal audit unit’s achievement of only 67% of its approved audit plan was flagged as a further concern.
Interim SA Tourism Board Chairperson Mzamo Masito said the entity has taken note of the Auditor-General’s findings.
“We have noted all the major issues that have been identified relating to SA Tourism, particularly around unqualified audit, vacancies, consequence management, suspensions of certain key executive roles, irregular expenditure and culture. All these are matters that the interim Board is taking seriously and making sure we track, improve and fix,” said Masito.
Presenting SA Tourism’s 2024/25 annual report, SA Tourism’s Acting CEO Darryl Erasmus pointed out that the entity’s performance has improved with achievement of targets rising to 88% from 78% in 2023/24.
“We are making big strides within the organisation to make sure the targets we have set for ourselves in our annual performance plans are being met and chased with all the might that we have,” said Erasmus.
Department of Tourism gets clean audit
The Department of Tourism received an unqualified audit outcome, with no findings, from the Auditor-General.
“We commend the accounting officer for achieving clean administration. This was due to stability in leadership and governance structures, leadership tone that drives ethical culture, integrity and accountability. The department has also implemented sound financial and performance management processes,” the budgetary review and recommendations report highlighted.
The Department of Tourism achieved 92.9% of its planned targets for the 2024/25 financial year.
