Another clean audit for iSimangaliso
Cheques totalling R862 000 were handed over to the nine land claims trusts.
ISIMANGALISO Wetland Park’s 2013-14 annual report has earned the organisation its 12th consecutive unqualified audit from the Auditor-General.
Hailed by iSimangaliso as making a ‘convincing case for the multiple, wide-ranging benefits of a tourism product that is both conservation-based and driven by community empowerment’, this audit is a significant achievement in the park’s history.
As part of the authority’s revenue-sharing arrangements, cheques totalling R862 000 were handed over to the nine land claims trusts.
This equates to 8% of the gross commercial revenue generated on the claimants’ land within the park.
‘The revenue paid to land owners has grown in each year of operation,’ said iSimangaliso CEO Andrew Zaloumis.
Situated in an area rife with unemployment, iSimangaliso’s Chairman Mavuso Msimang and his board see the park as ‘a source of economic benefit, both directly in the form of employment and indirectly through the use of its natural resources for income generation’.
Other highlights mentioned in the annual report include the rehabilitation of timber plantations to natural areas and exceeding targets relating to revenue and visitor numbers.
‘Balancing the competing needs and interest of our people while enhancing the World Heritage values that we hold dear isn’t always easy and many challenges remain,’ said Zaloumis.
‘But the 2014 annual report shows unequivocally that we are well on the way to [creating] Africa’s greatest conservation-based tourism product driven by community empowerment’.
