Chairperson, I commend the department for this piece of legislation, which will contribute to the development of an internationally competitive tourism industry in South Africa. The Minister has correctly said that there are provinces that had problems with this Bill because of its financial implications, and the North West is one of those provinces. Even if the Minister has allayed our fears, I would still like to voice them in this House, because I am still not satisfied. We have a lot of previously disadvantaged people whom we will have to train to see to it that this project becomes viable.
I hope that when the Minister says that those funds from Satour will be divided accordingly, he means it, or else we should be told or encouraged to see how we should access funds other than those from Satour that the Minister is referring to.
It is correctly said in this Bill that this function was run by Satour and is now being devolved to provinces, and we have this saying that funds should always follow functions. I am worried that the funds we will need will not be only for tourist guides, but also for the staff in the registrar's office. The Minister may be getting the staff from Satour, but where will we in the province be getting the staff from? We still have that doubt, and we are still not satisfied that this Bill will address this issue that is so close to our hearts.
We would like to promote tourist guides from our far-flung rural areas, because our people know everything about our rich history of the Anglo-Boer War, but because they are not trained as tourist guides they cannot explain it to the tourists properly. We want to take this seriously, but we need more funds for this to be successful. We support this Bill. [Applause.]