Kragga Kamma Game Park faces closure after losing rebate

[caption id="attachment_40315" align="alignright" width="405"] CLOSE UP: Kragga Kamma Game Park. Picture: MIKE HOLMES[/caption]

ONE of Nelson Mandela Bay's biggest tourist attractions, the Kragga Kamma Game Park, "almost certainly" faces closure after losing its annual rates rebate from the municipality.

The park now has to fork out an additional R13000 a month in property rates, putting a huge strain on its finances.

Although deputy mayor Chippa Ngcolomba said in March that a team of politicians would visit the Kragga Kamma Game Park and Seaview Predator Park before the council took a decision, this site visit never took place.

In May, the ANC and UDM passed the 2014-15 budget, as well as an amendment to the rates policy to revoke the 75% rates discount to the game parks.

They believed that other businesses in the tourism industry could claim they were not being treated equally.

Also, staff in the municipality's budget and treasury department have been dead set against the rates rebates because they claim they cannot be sure that the two parks were not participating in the practice of "canned hunting". - Rochelle de Kock