ANC MP and Chairperson of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee of Tourism, Beatrice Ngcobo, has died. Ngcobo underwent an operation earlier this month, but did not recover and died in hospital last night after a short illness.
A passionate advocate of South African tourism, Ngcobo served as an ANC MP since 2005 and was Deputy Chair for Community on Gender Equality, a disability rights activist for Disabled People SA, and a participant in the SANGOCO National Poverty Hearings in 1988.
Whip of the Portfolio Committee on Tourism, Lusizo Sharon Makhubela-Mashele, told Tourism Update: “It has been a sombre and sad day for all of us in the Committee…we came into the Committee in 2014 as we were deployed by the African National Congress, and in pursuit of the various programmes that were to transform the industry, Ms. Ngcobo worked tirelessly to ensure that domestic tourism flourished in the country.” She said Ngcobo was instrumental in ensuring that the department was restructured so that its programmes focused on growing tourism and its potential.
“She leaves a legacy ensuring that township tourism is realised…and that tourists also get to visit the townships, and they get to benefit within the tourism value chain.”
Her passing leaves a significant gap in a Committee devoted to promoting tourism as an economic driver, and showcasing South Africa as a desirable tourist destination. Ngcobo was often quoted saying: “Tourism is one of the drivers of the economy and job creation. We must do more to market South Africa abroad and to incentivise domestic tourism.”
Makhubela-Mashele concluded: “She was a soft-spoken person, but in her softness she was able to pass the message across; she was able to assert herself in that softness… to say ‘Tourism has to take this direction if it is to grow’.”
