Wesgro welcomes scrutiny

THE ANC chief whip in the Western Cape legislature, Pierre Uys, is mistaken in his concern that the funding of Wesgro — Cape Town and the Western Cape’s tourism, trade and investment promotion agency — by the department of the premier is irregular, as reported in “Zille’s Asian trip cost you R1-million” (May 7).

Mr Uys would be aware that our agency is a provincial public entity established by the Western Cape Tourism, Trade and Investment Promotion Agency Law (Act 3 of 1996) to deliver on economic promotion mandates by the provincial government of the Western Cape and the City of Cape Town, and that this law stipulates clearly how Wesgro can be funded.

In delivering these mandates, we regularly sign contracts with various government departments and entities to conduct international missions and undertake specific projects.

It is agreements like these that have helped Wesgro to facilitate R8.8-billion worth of investment into the regional economy over the past five years.

We welcome Mr Uys taking a closer look at Wesgro, and are certain that he will find that the secret of Cape Town and the Western Cape’s economic success is the strong collaboration between entities like Wesgro and various parts of our regional government. — Tim Harris, Wesgro CEO