NDT Annual Report 2012/13 - Department of Tourism

1.10 OVERVIEW BY THE ACCOUNTING OFFICER,
AMBASSADOR KINGSLEY MAKHUBELA
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Local Government in our sector, we have developed and rolled
out Tourism Training Programme as part of our capacity
building programme for municipalities. The Local Government
Conference hosted in this reporting period provided a platform
for dialogue between public and private sector stakeholders
and leadership to engage, share information on challenges
and tourism developments at local government.
To support planning for tourism growth and development the
department has completed the development of a jobs
forecasting model and initiated a process for the
development of a tourist arrivals model. We have continued
to monitor policies globally that might have direct bearing to
tourism business to enable responsiveness of our sector. In
order to curb illegal tourist guiding activities in our country
and ensure compliance with the legislation and regulations
for tourist guiding, we worked with our partners in law
enforcement agencies with regard to integration of tourist
guiding module into their training programmes.
Current strained global economic conditions in some of
South Africa’s major markets continues to be a challenge and
tourists from these markets seem to spend less when they
are in the country which might have an impact on the targets
set on revenue from tourism even if the number of foreign
tourist arrivals increases. Domestic tourism growth strategy
was implemented to cushion the impact of global economic
conditions on our international markets. We have
strengthened our capacity to understand our international
markets to inform our interventions to unlock South Africa’s
tourism potential the various regions of the world.
and promotion of sustainable tourism for the social,
economic and environmental benefit of South African citizens
and for the benefit of all its residents and foreign visitors. At
the end of the 2012/13 financial year the Bill was already in
the parliamentary process.
Although the department’s Employment Equity (EE) targets in
terms of women, Black people and persons with disabilities were
achieved, we have experienced a high vacancy rate of 11.17%
from a baseline of 9.2%. This was against our commitment to
maintain the target of 5% vacancy rate. The reasons for this
challenge include the growth in the establishment, staff turnover,
and withdrawal by nominated candidates.
I greatly appreciate the sterling work and commitment shown by
our management and staff towards ensuring that our mandate
translates into reality. As dedicated public servants, they
continue to stretch their capacity to support our government’s
efforts to deliver even more. We are also grateful for the
leadership and support of our Minister and our Deputy Minister.
We would like to extend our appreciation to the Chairpersons
of our Portfolio and Select committees in Parliament, Mr Donald
Gumede and Mr Dumisani Gamede respectively, and all
members of both Committees for the continued support they
have provided for our work. It is also with the support of our
partners in the public and private sectors that we are able to
move forward in our efforts to increase tourism’s contribution
to job creation and economic growth in South Africa.
Department of Tourism
To crystallise the tourism mandate, the Tourism Bill, 2012 has
been developed as a legal framework for the development
AMBASSADOR LM MAKHUBELA
Director-General