"Buried” Dinokeng festival report to be tabled in Tshwane Council

28 August 2023

Last week the DA presented Tourism Minister Patricia de Lille with a copy of the KPMG final report from 2017 into the City of Tshwane’s Dinokeng Music Festival investigation.

The KPMG report provides a plethora of detailed information, which includes how it appears that inflated payment figures provided by the then Director of Communications, Marketing and Events, Nomasonto Ndlovu do not match invoiced amounts with the differences not explained (page 58, page 69 and page 80 of the report). Ndlovo has recently been appointed as the Tourism South Africa (SAT) Acting CEO.

The KPMG report recommended on page 85 that the City of Tshwane should consider action against Ndlovu. It is our view the seriousness of the findings against Ndlovu must be considered in relation to appointing or retaining Ndlovu as SAT CEO, even in an acting capacity.

The South African Tourism (SAT) interim board as well as De Lille have on numerous occasions announced that they are investigating allegations of corruption presented by whistle-blowers against Ndlovu. It appears that this is nothing more than mere rhetoric as despite unambiguous information freely available, the allegations against her had seemingly not been addressed.

As a result, I have approached my colleague, Cllr Siobhan Muller who serves on the Municipal Public Accounts Committee (MPAC) of the City of Tshwane to “unbury” the KPMG report which has been buried by previous ANC administrations, after the then DA City government had called for a forensic investigation into this matter. Cllr Muller will request that this report be tabled at an upcoming MPAC meeting to now start an investigation process into the findings of this report this report. Should such an investigation reveal that there was malfeasance involving Ms Ndlovu, this will have a direct bearing on SAT and indeed the National Department of Tourism.

We will not let this matter lie. Now that another sphere of government will be looking into this specific previously hidden matter, I am confident that the truth will soon be exposed.

Issued by Manny de Freitas, DA Shadow Minister of Tourism, 28 August 2023