It is presumed that the Honourable member meant 17 August 2021 when the Department briefed the Portfolio Committee on Tourism on the 4th Quarter Performance Report for the financial year 2020/2021.
a) The initial approach was that the programme would be implemented through a partnership with a private sector financial institution, which unfortunately did not yield due to the length of time it took to finalise the Partnership Framework, including consultation with the National Treasury. This necessitated a change to a procurement approach which only started later in the financial year and as such could not be concluded in time.
b) Given that the process is still at procurement phase, no expenditure has been incurred towards implementation as yet.