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INLSA<\/p>\n
Staff from Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife struggle to prevent a heavily sedated black rhino bull from charging spectators.<\/p>\n
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The provincial government had no plans to cut off state funding for Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, but the conservation agency would need to start raising substantially more revenue, finance portfolio committee chair Belinda Scott said at the weekend. <\/p>\n
Elaborating on comments she made at a committee meeting in Pietermaritzburg last week, Scott told The Mercury that her committee did not expect Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife to be \u201ccompletely self-sustaining. But they will have to generate more revenue\u201d. <\/p>\n
Noting that Ezemvelo received an annual subsidy of about R500 million, Scott said she was not convinced the conservation agency was doing enough to market the province\u2019s conservation assets effectively. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we are saying is that we want to ensure that we get value for money, and that Ezemvelo has to use the current funding more wisely. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis does not mean that the province does not care about conservation, and obviously Ezemvelo will still require huge government subsidies in future.\u201d <\/p>\n
However, Scott said she was concerned that Ezemvelo\u2019s personnel costs were increasing while the number of staff had decreased. <\/p>\n
\u201cPart of the reason for this is that they are giving salary increases of 8 percent. These massive increases are no longer sustainable and we are going to have to negotiate with the trade unions and say: \u2018There is only so much money\u2019. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we asked Ezemvelo about their marketing component I did not get a clear answer, so one of the things we have asked for is a strategic plan. We will also be asking for more details on their full staff complement and whether these people are properly placed.\u201d <\/p>\n
Another concern was that while national parks in other provinces received central government funding through SA National Parks, most funding for conservation in KZN came from provincial government budget allocations. <\/p>\n
The DA, meanwhile, has called for an urgent meeting of the province\u2019s conservation portfolio committee \u201cto scrutinise the conservation body\u2019s grasp of its core mandate\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cContrary to what Ezemvelo officials appear to believe, hospitality is not the wildlife body\u2019s core function. Its mandate is to protect conservation within our province,\u201d said Radley Keys, the DA provincial spokesman on conservation. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt is confusion within this key area that has led to Ezemvelo\u2019s funding woes \u2013 to the extent that there is currently no direct budget allocated for the fight against rhino poaching in this province,\u201d Keys said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis situation represents an urgent need for the separation of tasks in the\u2026 body. <\/p>\n
\u201cEzemvelo continues to tout its hospitality arm as a cash cow. The reality is that, rather than being income generators, the camps are loss leaders. Despite staff cuts, salary bills continue to grow. Meanwhile, occupancy rates remain low and facilities and infrastructure are largely neglected. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is indicative of a malaise among staff, led by a clearly incompetent and self-serving management. <\/p>\n
\u201cEzemvelo has proved itself inept when it comes to this aspect of the business. It is time this was acknowledged, with the running of facilities [being] put out to tender or a public-private partnership entered into.\u201d <\/p>\n
Ezemvelo chief executive Bandile Mkhize and Ezemvelo board chairman Comfort Ngidi did not respond to requests for comment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
INLSA Staff from Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife struggle to prevent a heavily sedated black rhino bull from charging spectators. The provincial government had no plans to cut off state funding for Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, but the conservation agency would need to start raising substantially more revenue, finance portfolio committee chair Belinda Scott said at the weekend. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-15122","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15122\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}