Yes, in the projects that I have mentioned it does not include the Eastern Cape, but it does not mean that the Eastern Cape is not part of our plan. What we need to understand, hon members, is that tourism by its nature, as you know in the Constitution is a schedule 4 function, which is concurrent with a provincial government and all our plans, when we do planning; we plan in consultation with provinces. We engage provinces and provinces are the ones that are feeding us. We do not go and decide on projects ourselves but they are the feeders to the system.
We are working with the new model at O R Tambo to be in a position to come up with programmes and projects that intervene especially in
the OR Tambo region but we are also working with some municipalities, for example, last week I was in Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality, they are trying to work with the municipalities because the difficulty that we have is that when you go to analyse the Local Economic Developments, LEDs, and Integrated Development Plans, IDPs, of the municipalities, you hardly find anything that deals with tourism.
And therefore, we are beginning now trying to conscientise all the spheres to make sure they prioritise tourism as one of the key economic industries that has got the potential to deal with the challenges of unemployment and change the lives of our people. We have, for example, the Blue Flag programme where we are training young people we are able to make sure we clean our oceans and then the Eastern Cape is part of that programme and is part of that plan.
As I was in East London, I was also having a graduation of the National Youth Chefs Training Programme where young people were graduating in the Eastern Cape as chefs but also the National Youth Chefs Training Programme Chefs is encouraging them not just to become chefs only but also start their own businesses. We have got young women who are now in senior positions in various hotels
Buffalo City who were trained by the department to be chefs and they are now in charge of those hotels as chefs, managers.
It is a whole range of issues, as I have indicated; we are in the process of finalising our five-year strategic plan which we are working on together with the provinces so they can give us their own priorities. Thank you very much. [Applause.]