News24.com | De Lille names three members to serve on SA Tourism's interim board

Tourism Minister Patricia de Lille.

• Tourism minister Patricia de Lille has appointed three interim board members for SA Tourism.
• De Lille dissolved the previous board this week amid serious allegations.
• The department said the minister gazetted the appointments on Friday.

Tourism minister Patricia de Lille has appointed three people to sit on the interim board of SA Tourism.

The minister gazetted the appointments of Kholeka Zama, Tim Harris and Vincent Zwelibanzi Mntambo in line with Section 16 (3) (b) of the Tourism Act, the department said in a statement on Friday.

The department said the act empowered the minister to appoint board members to manage an entity where board members were dismissed. 

De Lille appointed Zama - a qualified chartered accountant with experience in finance, audit and governance – who has worked for companies that include Digital Frontiers NPC and British American Tobacco SA.

Harris is a tourism and economic promotion expert, an associate Professor of Practice at Johannesburg Business School and a senior advisor to the entrepreneur network Harambe Entrepreneur Alliance. 

Mntambo has experience in administrative and management positions at Fiat (SA) and as a faculty officer at North-West University.

He is the former director-general of the Gauteng Provincial government and Director of the Independent Mediation Service of South Africa (IMSSA), an NGO specialising in resolving industrial conflict.  

READ | We can't cancel a Tottenham Hotspur deal that doesn't exist, SA Tourism fires back at De Lille

Earlier this month, De Lille asked the board chairperson Thozamile Botha why she should not dissolve the board, amid allegations against its members.

The concerns included the controversial proposal to sponsor English Premier League football team Tottenham Hotspur for nearly R1 billion. 

On Wednesday, she dissolved the board, saying eight of the 11 board members, including Botha, had resigned between 7 and 13 April.

SA Tourism came under fire in February when Daily Maverick reported that it had proposed a three-year deal worth £42.5 million (nearly R1 billion) with Spurs, starting at the beginning of the 2023-24 English Premier League season and ending at the end of the 2026-27 season.

In return, SA Tourism would receive kit branding, interview backdrop branding, match-day advertising, partnership announcements, training camps in South Africa, and free access to tickets and stadium hospitality.

De Lille cancelled the deal in March.