Robben Island Ferry, Sikhululekile, still docked at the Clock Tower. Picture by: Henk Kruger/Cape Argus Robben Island Ferry, Sikhululekile, still docked at the Clock Tower. Picture by: Henk Kruger/Cape Argus
Police were investigating the possibility that the Robben Island Museum’s ferries were being sabotaged, its new CEO, Sibongiseni Mkhize, told MPs yesterday.
Mkhize said the investigation - by the police’s Organised Crime Unit, in conjunction with West Cape Marine - was probing the frequent breakdowns of its new R1-million ferry, Sikhululekile.
The investigation was at a “sensitive stage”, Mkhize told the National Assembly’s arts and culture committee.
All scheduled trips on the Sikhululekile were cancelled in September after a mechanical malfunction. The museum suffered lost revenue, negative publicity and had to pay hundreds of thousands of rand for repairs and on hiring ferries from other operators - at a cost of about R56 000 a day.
The Sikhululekile has broken down seven times since entering service in 2008. It cost at least R150 000 to fix the ferry, which can transport between 800 and 1 200 visitors a day.
Mkhize told MPs that, as the ferry was breaking down “every two to three weeks … we thought it was worth investigating”. He said other companies were picking up a lot of work when the Sikhululekile broke down and this was something to be looked into.
Mhkize, who took over as CEO on November 1, said the new Robben Island Museum Council, appointed in March, had initiated the investigation. He did not say when it would be concluded.
He conceded that the museum’s brand was suffering from the frequent breakdowns.
“We’re getting a lot of negative publicity because of the ferry situation,” Mhkize said. He said as CEO he wanted to “take Robben Island out of the mess it is in and give public confidence in this World Heritage Site again”.
A forensic investigation earlier this year found that management had been negligent in its handling of the acquisition of the Sikhululekile and that the contract entered into with the company that supplied the ferry had not been in the museum’s favour. While its delivery was delayed for a lengthy period, there were no penalty clauses for this.
When the ferry broke down, the museum had to cancel all scheduled trips, museum spokesman Shoni Khangala said yesterday.
The Sikhululekile had been in the water since and was undergoing routine maintenance in preparation for the peak tourist season.
Khangala said the museum was using back-up ferries, the Diaz and Susan Kruger. Last week, another ferry had had to be hired from a private company as it had been a busy day.
The ferry is just one of many problems to plague the museum. In September, it received a qualified audit from the auditor-general, who said the museum had incurred irregular expenditure of R117 000 and fruitless and wasteful expenditure of more than R2 million.
The acting chairman of the committee, Peter Maluleka, said he and the committee would give Mhkize and his team their full support.
“Robben Island is not just any island. It holds a very important part of the history of our country. It belongs not just to us, but to the world.
“We can’t allow a situation to have it removed from (being) a World Heritage Site. During your term, we will back you in trying to change things at Robben Island.”
However, MPs heard about the challenges facing the island’s management “year in and year out”.
“You must turn the situation around,” Maluleka told the CEO. “People have had hard times on Robben Island, yet they feel very close to it, it has played such a part in their lives. Here I am thinking of Tata Mandela and others. We will fail them if we fail Robben Island.”
The committee asked Mkhize to report back in the new year. - Political Bureau