INTERVIEW WITH LYNNE BROWN, MEC FOR FINANCE & TOURISM
What's in a name?
Throughout CapeInfo, we abbreviate Western Cape provincial government to WCPG.
The Western Cape Provincial Legislature is often referred to as the provincial parliament. The equivalent of the cabinet at national level is the executive council at provincial level. The Western Cape is the only province (with special legislation) where members of the executive council (MEC's) are referred to as ministers... at local level only... when dealing with national government they are referred to as MEC's.
'Jack be nimble, Jack be quick'
Provincial government launched its Western Cape Tourism Development Partnership this year.
The goals – broad inclusivity – may be noble but it's a cumbersome organisation that will be difficult to focus and steer. Some criticise it for vesting more control in PGWC, and point to the excellent model of SA Tourism working with the Tourism Business Council.
Will the Partnership sideline the good work of the Province's Tourism Business Forum?
We balk at the following diagram about this partnership:
Putting the MEC at the centre of tourism is fatuous – it's private sector tourism that drives everything.
It seems to be the kind of "talkshop" that chased away the competent people from the private sector at the beginning of the decade. Looking at the sub-committee nominations, it seems like the same old, same old... Did we miss the Convention Centre, V&A Waterfront, Table Mountain, etc, there?
PGWC can be no more than the catalyst, mobilising and encouraging the private sector; guiding them to a new provincial culture of co-operation and collaboration. And... being part of a winning province!
A history of rebuttal
Lynne Brown is less than happy at the way the private sector has come forward. But there is a reason.
In 1986 Pick 'n Pay's Raymond Ackerman offered to put R1 million into an upgraded Cape Town Festival - a lot of money then. Proposals were prepared and workshopped with other business leaders. Then came the presentation to Captour's board, since they managed the festival. It was an embarrassment, with Ackerman being attacked for the quality from Pick 'n Pay's catering division! The proposal and offer died – Cape Town's mayor at the time was Peter Muller. He was also chairman of Captour and one of his companies had the contract for the Cape Town Festival.
In 1991, Ackerman started Cape Town's 2004 Olympic Bid. He ran it and paid for it. Then when Cape Town was chosen South Africa's preferred city, local government told him it was their prerogative as host city to appoint the management team and dumped him unceremoniously, with no gratitude, respect or recompense for what he had achieved.
Now if anyone as successful, widely respected and passionate about Cape Town is treated like that, surely anyone from the private sector worth their oats will think twice before contributing to anything where the public sector has a say?
In 1999, Hugh von Zahn, as regional chair of the Tourism Business Council, was nominated for the Western Cape Tourism Board. Now surely the TBC was an important roleplayer and von Zahn is without doubt a competent businessman? But he didn't get the nod; he would have rocked the boat.
Many others in the private sector learnt this lesson in 2001 when they rallied to support Leon Markovitz's Joint Marketing Inititiative. But when he – a successful and respected businessman – left public office, the process was taken over by bureaucrats. CEO's from sizable businesses sat in meetings where junior officials were too important to turn their cellphones off. CEO's were told what was expected of the private sector. Many were so aghast they vowed never to get involved in public sector initiatives again.
More recently, CTRU has failed to gain or garner widespread private sector support. Offers of assistance were rejected. Decisions were taken by some companies at board level not to get involved because it was a waste of time.
The public sector needs to establish its bona fides anew. It needs to earn trust before enjoying any credibility.
Half an hour for an interview with someone one has never met is not much time. It's fine for a few questions and answers, but not when one also tries to understand the person's philosophy and way of doing business.
WE warmed to Lynne Brown the moment she walked in the door. There was an immediate rapport and mutual respect. Brown repeatedly remarked, "I shouldn't be enjoying this interview as much as I am." Yes, CapeInfo has been very harsh on her before, but it's taken a year to gain this interview and anybody in public office should know that accessibility is one requirement to building relationships and avoiding criticism. CapeInfo hopes to establish a much closer relationship in future. We genuinely liked her.
We recalled that our last visit to the Provincial Building had been in 2001 to a former MEC for her portfolio. The late Leon Markovitz had invited us because he wanted to bounce a new idea he had for a Joint Marketing Initiative. Given what's happened since, it seems a lifetime ago!
Brown admitted that the Provincial Building does seem an intimidating place... and the cause for the greatest annual trauma in her family when she really wants them to be there for her annual budget address to the provincial parliament.
For anyone from the private sector, the place certainly has a foreign culture. We first encountered it 10 years ago on a visit to a former premier, Hernus Kriel. He revelled in his tough guy image, he intimidated staff and all opposition. But we challenged in the way that CapeInfo is now renowned for, and found him open, accommodating and a thoroughly nice guy.
If you visited Transnet's brand new HQ in Johannesburg in 1990, you would have been impressed by the building and appointments. But you would have been astounded to discover that on the executive floor, only the CEO had a female personal assistant. The rest had former railways clerks who called their seniors "oom" (uncle). Elements of South Africa's historical culture linger today.
The culture of WCPG and its reliance on authoritarian structures contrasted so with the culture we got to discover a few years later that epitomise BMW. There, empowerment (true personal empowerment, mind you!) and taking ownership were inculcated into every BMW employee, and every employee or manager had to go through BMW's induction course. Why has Australia been so successful? Is it their irreverence for authority that breeds that can-do, kick-ass attitude? Maybe it's a pity that convicts destined for Australia were not allowed to be offloaded at the Cape! Or maybe the Cape was weakened when local rebels embarked on the Groot Trek to take entrepreneurship and the can-do attitude up north. Today, the Western Cape's provincial culture is out of step with the rest of South Africa.
LYNNE BROWN has been in the spotlight this year. As the saga at Cape Town Routes Unlimited (CTRU) unfolded, she claimed in March that "there is no crisis"... everything was hunkey-dory. In June, the City of Cape Town gave notice that it intends withdrawing its R24 million a year grant and pulling out of CTRU. In her address to the full City Council, mayor Helen Zille said, "This notice is also intended to send a clear message to the Minister responsible for CTRU in Province that the status quo cannot be maintained." In July, the CTRU chairperson appointed by Brown admitted to the City that there are serious problems at CTRU.
Brown says that after the last CEO resigned after two months on the job, they did review what is happening there and found two problems – finance and HR – "they have a staff of over 60!" which she believes is excessive. On criticisms of poor branding, she says that if the organisation and the board don't have the necessary skills, they should be buying it in. She notes that when the board asked for her permission to appoint a chief operating officer, that request was granted.
But in reviewing their service level agreement with the province, she says they found that CTRU had met 80% of their obligations. Regarding the demands and frequent requirements by PGWC on CTRU, she doesn't see this as interference but rather the accountability that is due.
Brown admits that CTRU's future is in the balance and one option, which she doesn't favour, is for it to be incorporated into the provincial tourism department. She is disappointed that the private sector has not been more supportive, saying "they have never had it as good..."
Now good finance and HR should be the given in any organisation. Without it, in the private sector, one would go brankrupt. But what of, for CTRU, great marketing and the big ideas the public can buy into? These are the criticisms that have been levelled at the organisation. Brown takes the point that the "big ideas" are missing.
If CTRU is accountable to PGWC on a daily basis, we have to wonder why there is a board of directors at all. Is it a feel-good factor so they can say "we have private sector participation"? One of the previous board members was criticised by a provincial bureaucrat for a statement he had made in his private capacity, and warned not to do it again. Is that acceptable?
The Great Divide "Private sector tasks are always results-driven; public sector tasks are process-driven"
It does seem that PGWC doesn't understand the private sector and does not know how to work with that sector. Prescribing structures and authority won't achieve success and is so "old South Africa". This is PGWC's biggest hurdle. Commenting on this draft interview, someone made the point that when the private sector tackles a task, it's always results-driven; when the public sector tackles a task, it's process-driven.
Brown is a former schoolteacher where order and discipline are essential qualities. We're sure that she was a very popular teacher and that her learners responded to her expectations. But when you're dealing with experienced businesspeople, mutual trust and respect alongside creativity and breaking the norm are ingredients for success. Brown is passionate about her job and determined to make a success of tourism in the province. In the same way that she enjoyed this interview, we are sure she would enjoy more robust and wider discussions about tourism outside the provincial structures.
Brown places a lot of hope in the new Western Cape Tourism Development Partnership that was launched eariler this year and asks, "Don't you think that the Tourism Partnership with people like Nils Heckscher will do good work?" Heckscher chairs Fedhasa Cape and is on the CTRU board. Fedhasa focuses and does stirling work on operational issues for its members. It is careful not to rock the boat. At national level, almost 50% of its board comprises government or statutory agencies. So Heckscher must be a very comfortable choice for the MEC.
This raises an important question we didn't get to ask. Why is Fedhasa the chosen organisation for representation on the CTRU board? CTRU is a marketing organisation and Fedhasa has no marketing focus, whereas SATSA does have a marketing focus and their nomination was rejected. One must also wonder why CTRU has a place on the Fedhasa Cape board which deals only with members' operational issues.
Ten years ago we wrote about the "koffie en koeksuster" culture that prevailed in provincial tourism structures – great warmth and friendliness, but not terribly professional. Brown agreed that this is still a problem she encounters when going into tourism offices unannounced and unidentified. Accreditation alone won't solve this, more training is needed (and probably some attitude adjustment as well).
Apart from CTRU, other provincial agencies like CapeNature and Wesgro have also been in the spotlight lately. Could there be a wider problem with the structures of provinncial agencies we asked. "Environmental MEC Tasneem Essop is looking into the affairs at CapeNature, but we have a fourth agency that has performed exceptionally well – the Western Cape Gambling and Gaming Board," she says. That's primarily because it operates at arm's length with the private sector and little creativity is required of it.
Can our provincial culture be changed? We are so out of step with the rest of South Africa. The Western Cape's ANC is riddled with divisions which makes everything even more difficult. It's interesting how the new governments of Gordon Brown in the UK and Nicolas Sarkozy in France have placed extraordinary emphasis on having inclusive leadership across all spectrums – the party is one thing but government is for all the people and can only succeed if it works with the private sector.
A short CV
LYNNE BROWN has a long history of involvement in women's and community organisations in the Western Cape. Born in 1961, she trained and worked as a teacher for a number of years.
She was chairperson of the Mitchell's Plain Youth Congress in 1979 and a member of the United Women's Organisation from 1979 to 1985. She was a member of the United Women's Congress from 1985 to 1990, serving first as Education Officer and then as Provincial Secretary.
She was involved in the United Democratic Front from its formation in 1983 until its disbandment, serving as a member of its Finance Committee.
Brown joined the ANC in 1987 and was elected to the Provincial Executive Committee and Provincial Working Committee in 1999. She has served as Western Cape Provincial Secretary of the ANC Women's League since 1990.
Her involvement in education continued after her teaching years. She was a board member of the National Literacy Project and is currently a board member of the Extramural Education Project. She initiated and was director of the Women's College in 1990.
In 1994 and again in 1999 she was elected as an ANC Member of the Western Cape Provincial Legislature. She was chairperson of the standing committees on Community Services and on Health and Welfare, and served as an ANC Whip and Chief Whip in the legislature. She stood as the ANC's candidate as mayor of Cape Town in 1999 and has been provincial MEC for finance, economic development and tourism since 2004.
I once wrote an essay on Napoleon the Third called 'A Tragedy of Good Intentions' which is apt when it comes to the organization of tourism marketing and development in our province. Everybody means well, and I am sure that Lynne Brown is no exception, but the decision making always goes awry because the MEC in charge will not take advice from the tourism industry and allow it to set up and run an efficient organization itself.
The real tragedy is that we have been traversing this ground in the same fashion for years, all to no avail. In fact, all that happens is that the bureaucracy gets more bloated as the budgets grow bigger, but the results remain as meagre. I was shocked to read the report on CTRU and how they have failed to deliver on their mandate and their failure to spend our taxpayers money wisely.
What always staggers me is how politics can destroy that which is working.
City parking and the Numque debacle is a classic example, so is CTRU. Once upon a time we had a highly competent woman called Sheryl Ozinsky running Cape Town Tourism. She had managed to create near miracles on a miniscule budget and was by far the only person who really understood the dynamics of tourism in the Western Cape. At the time when a new tourism organization was being mooted I attended 2 meetings where there was a fair representation of tourism leaders in the room and it was obvious that the industry wanted the new organization to be headed by Sheryl - instead we got a new organization headed by totally inexperienced people with a ridiculous sounding name and a weird looking board to give 'guidance'. The whole thing was doomed to failure from the start.
Part of what always goes wrong with these endeavors starts with the composition of the board. Instead of choosing a board representing a wide spectrum of tourism services, wings, wheels, accommodation, hospitality, tourism services, event co-coordinators etc., all of whom have legitimate and representative umbrella organizations, the temptation is always to load the board with political appointees. So we see councillors, provincial representatives, arms dealers, organized labour, tap dancers and used-car salesmen appointed to such boards, the incentive always being free overseas travel. It is ridiculous. And to compound the failure there are always a few well meaning business leaders who are co-opted on to the board to give it gravitas but who find themselves outflanked at every turn.
The second thing that inevitably goes wrong is the leadership of the organization itself. A well meaning palooka is chosen to head up the organization and then starts a process that is a corollary of Parkinson's Law - an organization expands to fit the budget allowed for producing results until no results are possible, at which time it reaches stasis. To prove my point look no further than the salary bill of CTRU which swallows 70% of the budget. Add to that the large offices, aimless travel, pointless workshops and entertaiment and there is not much left for acieving any kind of measureable outcome. No wonder Simon Grindrod wants to close it down, as a custodian of rate-payer's money it is the responsible thing to do.
In order to understand why this type of failure happens in an organization like the CTRU you have to look at what is called "process" and how it impacts on service delivery. In the strange new world of contemporary SA we have elevated process to the level of a mantra, all to the exclusion of results. In the business world you focus on outcomes and results and decide on the shortest path to get there. This is standard business practice. In the weird world of the bureaucracy you follow a process, often to the exclusion of results. As long as you can show that you are following a process all will be well, the results are incidental. A good example is the Green Point common which is being held up because Tasneem Essop is going through an elaborate 'public participation process' while time is running out. For her the process is more important than the result - in fact there may be no result in the end because time ran out. So what, she followed the process. Similarly, the CTRU had to collect stats on tourism performance and have followed the process; staff sat behind their desks shuffling paper, religiously following some process but the results are missing. So too tourism development, the other mandateof the CTRU. They have probably held countless work-shops, conducted studies, called in consultants, gone through public participation hearings etc. but have not actually developed anything.
The real evil of this fixation on process is that bureaucracies create meaningless jobs filled by people who are function directed rather than being held accountable for results achieved. How else do you explain the 'Gap Analysis" in he CTRU report? Go on to the CTRU website and see how this works in practice. In the commercial world a website is an extension of a company's communication outreach and hence is a selling tool, nothing more.
You measure its effectiveness by hits and Rands generated. In the strange world of the bureaucracy everything is introverted. All thing point to stasis. It is a form of navel gazing. So we see 'vision', process writ large, pictures of staff, corporate manifestos, pledges and self-adulation - precious little about results. Why is it so difficult to navigate such a site, as opposed say to CapeInfo.com? Because the purpose of the website is unclear. If it were customer or traveller oriented it would be constructed in a totally different fashion. Compare it, say, to the Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau for a startling comparison.
Take the ridiculous name Cape Town Routes Unlimited. This was clearly thought out by a lame-brain with no marketing nous. At the time when this absurdity was being mooted there was a fair amount of industry resistance.
The bureaucrats always know better. I will never forget going with Mel to see the board of Cape Metro Tourism (remember them?) to try and convince them about using the mountain as an icon and the word Cape Town as the spearhead. Mel gave them an impassioned speech using Coca Cola as an example of a globally recognized icon. It was an inspiring performance from a seasoned advertising professional. On the way out a chubby councillor informed me that HE was personally going 'to do marketing at the WTM, implying that he did not need our collective wisdom as he was a master of tourism marketing, why else did he sit on the board? He was going to take a thousand pamphlets and distribute them himself. I suppose that after he delivered half of them to the stand, ditched the other half, he went on to have a right old time at tax-payer's expense.
The question to ask is this. If there is so much tourism industry knowledge and good-will out there, why is it not being used? I suppose that it is ego and political expediency that get in the way. It would take a brave MEC to call a meeting of the best and brightest in the industry and ask them to give their ideas and input and then turn the funds over to them to set it all up, operate it and be held accountable for results achieved. Oh, and have the books audited by an independent auditor. After all, industry and government are antagonists in the true sense of the word; industry makes the money and government spends it. Why else would you want to give industry money to make more money? In the best of all possible worlds Ebrahim Rasool would create a separate MEC for tourism, give him free reign to appoint an industry led board and set about turning tourism into the saving grace of the Western Cape.
Lucille says:
August 4th, at 11:37 AM
Brown appears to have what it takes to turn tourism in the Western Cape around. In doing so, hope she remembers the West Coast, often considered the Cinderella of the area.
Chris von Ulmenstein says:
August 4th, at 0:09 AM
Well done in telling it like it is, and for creating dialogue between all the tourism parties - it is a pity that the authorities do not like "inconvenient truths" and try to shoot the messengers. The CTRU disaster, since its inception as the DMO four years ago, is an excellent example of a body that has not wanted to accept or react to the regular private sector input it received via various channels. The two previous CTRU Boards must be largely to blame. Let's see what the new CTRU Board will do to face its huge challenge of survival.
Bottom line seems to be an over-dominant influence and meddling in the affairs of CTRU and its Board by the provincial Minister of Finance and Tourism! There never was a true 50/50 partnership between the City of Cape Town and the Western Cape province as far as CTRU was concerned - all the City did was to pay its R 20-odd million every year without seeking accountability. Well done to Simon Grindrod for caring about the efficiency and accountability of our ratepayers' monies.
Chris von Ulmenstein
Whale Cottage Portfolio
graham millest says:
August 3rd, at 11:08 AM
I cannot understand why Tourism bodies in this country tend to feel that overseas marketing ONLY involves Travel/tour operators which specialize in dealing with Hotels (who already have large marketing budgets and related staff). Overseas the government funded industries tend to focus more on supporting smaller establishments where their guests tend to spend foreign currency on a more widespread basis. (i.e. outside the many facilities offered inside a modern Hotel!!) We are still suffering from a misplaced (as far as Cape town is concerned) negative attitude in England and USA that CRIME is a major reason NOT to make an initial trip to this fair city! Why can't Cape Town (via City and Province) make a concerted effort to put more/regular articles into newspapers/radio/t.v./ to show not only what prospective tourists are missing but show PEOPLE WALKING about our streets (safely) and night life in say Long Street.
Up until a few days ago I had Guests AGAIN telling me they had friends/colleagues asking them WHY they were going on holiday to a country with so much crime - Why aren't we actively trying to reverse this trend - especially when these countries have many serious crime spots and have had many atrocious civilian attacks resulting in deaths!!!!
Mel Miller says:
August 3rd, at 9:30 AM
Hmmm... just looking at her title - specifically the order of the words describing her portofolio responsibilities - gives me cause for concern. You will notice that Tourism is the last to be mentioned. This would, to my mind, indicate where her priorities lie. I expect that Ms Brown being the bureaucrat/politician she is, will justify the importance of Finance and Economic Development ahead of Tourism.
As most of us in the industry know Tourism is the real driver of the economy - an inconvenient (political) truth, but true. Tourism produces the revenue and Tourism drives the economic development - not the other way round. How long is it going to take before the penny drops? I challenged Dr Platzky on this very subject some 3 years ago and got into the same political dead-end as you did. How come she is still around? If people are dead to the truth they should be buried. That is where dead people belong - not in positions of authority.
My deepest fear is that we have yet another "authority" in Ms Brown who - as her CV shows - has absolutely zip real world experience of tourism and even less of marketing.
I know you think she is sweet but that ain't going to encourage the likes of Richard Branson and other entrepreneurs to commit huge sums of money to the tourism effort as long as the current status quo exists. We need real leadership. Leadership that recognises the value and importance of tourism - somebody that is prepared to put Tourism first in every aspect of their being - and especially on their business card. When that happens I'll consider putting my 5 cents into the pot again. Not before.
Putting the MEC at the centre of tourism is fatuous – it's private sector tourism that drives everything.
