Wesgro draws high investment

BOARD chairperson Brian Figaji said that in the 2017/18 financial year Wesgro received 86 declarations from its clients across investment, trade and film creating R7.1bn worth of value and resulting in a total of 5 554 jobs being created.

“In addition, the destination marketing team supported 32 initiatives resulting in R454 million and won 33 conference bids valued at R453m.

“Further, the Cape Town Air Access team contributed in adding four new routes and seven route expansions, adding 250 000 two-way seats to Cape Town International Airport. This has added R700m in estimated direct tourism spending to the Western Cape economy,” Figaji said.

But the auditor-general last week identified certain risks for Wesgro, saying that in previous years it had been slow to address problems, thus requiring material correction to its annual financial statement.

The auditor-general released a report which showed that departments in the Western Cape government had regressed, and that irregular expenditure topped R44m.

Irregular expenditure at Wesgro was at R1m and stemmed from a payment for a computer server program.

“The delay in the procurement of the Nutanix system server, which although it met the requirements for it to be classified, resulted in an emergency procurement.

“As required by the National Treasury, regulations, goods and services of a transaction value above R500 000 are to be procured by inviting competitive bids.

“However, this was done and so a deviation was approved by the accounting authority,” he said.

ANC finance spokesperson Carol Beerwinkel said even though Wesgro had shown improvements, there were issues.

“One needs to ask why it was not following the stipulated regulations within the supply chain management sector.

“The bulk of its problems with irregular expenditure stem from all these departments that are not following the supply chain rules.”

Wesgro chief executive Tim Harris, however, said Day Zero proved the biggest challenge in the 2017/18 year.

Harris said that a few months from the end of the year, it became clear that Day Zero would not happen.

“The record-breaking and sustained reduction of water usage by 57% in three years on the part of the citizens and the addition of water sources such as aquifers and springs have seen us build a more resilient business and tourism destination,” he said.

Harris said their investment promotion unit realised 12 investment projects that were valued at R2.29bn.