The Cango Caves will not be closing, according to the newly elected Executive Mayor of the Greater Oudtshoorn Municipality, Wessie van der Westhuizen.

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Van der Westhuizen, who recently visited the caves, said: “The caves are not collapsing and the caves won’t close. A task team consisting of councillors and officials from the caves will be established soon to work together with the Western Cape Provincial Government and National Government looking deeper into the whole situation and financial analysis of the Cango Caves.”

The Mayor’s statement comes after reports that the caves were in trouble as a result of alleged financial mismanagement by the former leaders at the Oudtshoorn Municipality.

However Neil Els, MD of Turnberry Boutique Hotel, says the situation is not as rosy as the municipality is making it out to be. He told Tourism Update that the R16m (€1.2m) that was taken by the municipality from the caves last year will probably not be reimbursed. “There are no funds available at the municipality,” he said.

Els said the Cango Caves’ Manager, Hein Gerstner, had recently resigned out of protest. Said Els: “Gerstner has been calling on both the province and the national government for many, many years to sort out the Caves – to no avail. The entire industry eagerly awaits action and a sustainable solution to this icon of our South African heritage.”

Despite his resignation, Gerstner agreed to speak to Tourism Update and said that although the Mayor had been replaced, the same administrative municipal employees who were responsible for the mismanagement of Cave funds were still in their positions.

Gerstner added that the R16m had not been reimbursed and said he was doubtful it ever would be as the municipality had now been placed under administration.  The contractors who installed the lights at the caves had been paid less than half of the money that was owed to them, he said.

According to Gerstner, although the municipality says that a task team has been appointed, nobody at the Cango Caves has been contacted. Gerstner warned that if the government didn’t find a secure and appropriate institutional home for the Cango Caves, they would be lost for South Africa. “If the money runs dry, all other efforts (conservation, marketing etc.) will cease.”