Another fire underlines problems at Kruger National Park
14 September 2020
Note to Editors: The statement that was distributed earlier contained an error in the headline, this is the corrected version
Another shop has caught fire in the Kruger National Park. The fire at Berg-en-Dal camp follows five days after a fire that destroyed the shop at Letaba. The cause of the fires is undetermined.
These fires comes in light of the Kruger Park CEO, Fundisile Mketeni dodging giving answers about what’s going on with the Park’s accommodation crisis. At a meeting of the Portfolio Committee on Environment, Forestry and Fisheries on 2 September, I asked Mketeni to provide details of how much of the Kruger Park’s guest accommodation was not usable, and what the reasons were for it not to be available. Although I asked for those answers within 24 hours, Mketeni was protected by ANC Committee Chairperson Fikile Xasa, who allowed 7 days for written answers to these questions to be delivered. That deadline has come and gone, and if Mketeni has delivered his report, it has not been passed on to MPs.
I wrote to Xasa on 1 September to request a special meeting of the Portfolio Committee to drill down into these and other questions about the state of Kruger National Park. To date I have not had a reply.