Chairperson, I was relieved when I heard the Deputy Minister saying that we would not, as the Department of Tourism, be funding this event. It is apparently taking place on a dried-out desert lake in Mier, which must be the most inaccessible and inhospitable place in the entire country. But then, in answer to your next follow-up question, Minister, you said that we would wish to assist these types of events.
Now, I'm not quite sure: Are we, as the Department of Tourism, assisting this event or not? I would have thought that, since we've cut the SA Tourism's budget by R160 million over the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF, period, this is the last thing we should be doing, having spent R43 billion remarketing our country, and then cutting back our advertising budget.
So, can you give us an idea of what the criteria are that the department is adopting to actually fund these types of events or not? When do we go ahead and do this? When do we leave it alone and concentrate on our core business, which is marketing our country oversees?