SA National Parks (SANParks) will increase its spending on BBBEE companies next year to 65% of its annual budget, says Portio Mosikare, gm: supply chain management. From next year, she says, SANParks will force its outsourced concessionaries to comply with the BEE Tourism Charter and Scorecard in that their BEE ownership must be 26% or more; and 79% of their employees must be sourced from communities surrounding the parks. SANParks’ 2009 target is to create 620 additional jobs and a guaranteed SMME spend of R14m per annum. She says SANParks already pays SMMEs within 10 working days to improve their cash flow and to widen its SMME service provider network. In terms of Government programmes, SANParks is involved in Expanded Public Works Programmes (EPWP), Poverty Relief, Working for Water (alien vegetation clearing), Working for the Coast (cleaning beaches), Working for Wetlands (rehabilitating wetlands) and People & Parks (infrastructure upgrades in parks). For the People & Parks Programme alone, SANParks has paid out R232m to SMMEs in the past three years. The programme has used at least 1 200 SMMEs and has created 400 additional black-owned SMMEs from communities surrounding the parks.