GOVERNMENT has
reduced travel budgets
as part of its costcontainment
measures,
which, in some instances,
have caused a reduction in
bed nights and flights for
certain suppliers.
Sailesh Parbhu, md of XL
Nexus Travel, says stringent
measures have been put
in place. He adds that
compliance to government’s
department-wide travel
policy is measured on a
monthly or quarterly basis
by means of supplying TMC
reports to National Treasury,
which then concludes
vetting and verification
on airfares and other
expenses.
Another TMC, who chose
to remain anonymous,
suggested that cost cutting
could also be politically
motivated, based on the
upcoming elections. “We
saw the same kind of cost
containment happening
around the last elections.
Government doesn’t want
to be seen wasting money
on ‘unnecessary’ or
extravagant travel,” said the
TMC.
A few hotels based
near parliament said they
sometimes got government
rejections, purely based on
rates. “We’ve noticed this
trend recently, with most of
the rate rejections coming
from SAPS,” they said.
Explaining the criteria
government uses to
determine whether or not
travel is necessary, Parbhu
said: “Every government
department has a national
plan and the plan is
basically driven by their
executive committee, from
the director-general’s side.
Then, they’ve got portfolios
within each government
department with weekly,
monthly and yearly plans.
The responsibility for
fulfilling those obligations
within government drives
meetings, and dictates
whether they need to travel
or not, all within the limits
of budgets.”
