Five years after construction began on 71 community tourism infrastructure projects, only 46 have been completed – prompting concern in Parliament about ongoing delays and delivery issues. Tourism Minister Patricia de Lille has announced a final extension of the department’s implementation agreement with the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), now set to run until 2027.
The DBSA was originally appointed as the Department of Tourism’s implementing agent in November 2020, following a memorandum of agreement to deliver a range of community-based tourism projects. These included Working for Tourism initiatives, local museums and projects like the Vredefort Dome in the Free State and Manyane Lodge in North West.
Addressing the delays in Parliament, De Lille said: “We should have started the projects of the seventh administration and aligned new projects with the three key priorities of government.”
Chuene Ramphele, Group Executive: Infrastructure Delivery at the DBSA, said of the 71 projects, 46 had been completed. Of the remaining 25, 14 are in planning and design, and one has been terminated by the contractor because of “intolerable” local unrest. Of the remaining 10, he said three have either reached completion in recent days or would be completed by the end of May.
He cited multiple challenges that hampered delivery including community unrest, interference by the “construction mafia”, delays caused by Eskom and local municipalities, bad weather and changing scopes. Manyane Lodge experienced a fire in December, which required additional work. At Royal Khalanga Lodge, work done by local SMEs had to be redone because of quality issues.
Members of the parliamentary committee were not impressed with the progress, highlighting a lack of community engagement and concerns about the management of projects once handed over.
De Lille said: “As a department, we also need to up our game in contract management on a monthly basis and make sure we achieve the outcomes in the contract.” She said the department pays a management fee to the DBSA so it has contractual obligations to fulfil.
She highlighted capacity issues at the DBSA, saying she has observed project managers juggling too many projects at the same time. She said the DBSA has also “glanced over social facilitation”, which resulted in community issues. Consultation was done at conception but required project steering committees, including community members, to manage concerns throughout the projects, she added.
De Lille also cited the handover of projects as “another weakness”, saying her department needs to include maintenance in project service agreements with contractors because “we know the communities don’t always have the resources to do maintenance” after projects are handed over to them.
She said there is a need to appoint operational managers before projects are handed over to ensure the facilities are sustainable, become profitable and generate income for community members.
“We’ve relooked at the service level agreements to hold DBSA accountable but the buck stops with the Department of Tourism,” De Lille said. “We already know we are well over time.” She added that at the end of the seven years, the department would determine how far over the original R1.1 billion (€54m) budget it would be.
