PARLIAMENT’s portfolio committee on tourism chairwoman Tandi Mahambehlala says there will be an investigation for those involved in the Tottenham Hotspur R1 billion deal.
On Wednesday, 8 February, she said that although the proposed sponsorship by the South African Tourism (SAT) for the English Premier League team has been red-carded, there has to be an investigation on the matter.
She said the whole fiasco stinks of corruption as SAT’s interim CFO, Johan van der Walt, admitted that he still had ties with companies that acted as the middlemen to clinch the deal.
“There is no way that we are going to let this slide. The decision of the portfolio committee on tourism was to say that there has to be an investigation,” said Mahambehlala.
She said that there was an agreement that parliament and the committee should institute the investigation, and not the Department of Tourism.
She said what surprised them was that the South African Football Association (Safa) was not involved in any stage of the proposal.
Mahambehlala said there was no way you can bring an English side or whatever team to South Africa without the involvement or knowledge of Safa.
She said this proves to the committee that the deal was not inclusive.
Van der Walt was brought in December to act for seven months.
He admitted to the committee on Tuesday, 7 February, that in as much as he was no longer active in companies that are middlemen for this deal, he was still consulting on their behalf.
The committee found that contradictory.
“You can’t say you are not involved except on a consulting basis. That alone for us showed us that there was something fishy and that we need to go deeper in order to satisfy South Africans and ourselves as the arm of the state that is responsible for oversight and accountability,” said Mahambehlala.
Tourism Minister Lindiwe Sisulu said she was not aware of the proposed deal.
“As the portfolio committee we are not convinced that she was not aware of this particular deal, but we don’t want to make prognosis out of that until the investigation unfolds and we will be able to get facts,” said Mahambehlala.
She said the committee has requested minutes of the meeting from the board, the attendance register and costs incurred by SAT working on the deal.
