Депутаты раскритиковали правительство провинции Северный Запад за саботаж парламентского контроля над планом массовой охоты на слонов

North West clearly doesn’t want Parliament to interfere with its controversial elephant management plan, which includes the possibility of mass culling. The best way appears to be to ensure that, when requested by the parliamentary environment committee, North West’s MEC for economic development, environment, conservation and tourism Bitsa Lenkopane simply fails to turn up – and her department submits an incomplete report. On 11 August, Lenkopane was again absent when North West appeared before Parliament’s committee on forestry, fisheries and the environment to explain its plans for managing elephants in Madikwe and Pilanesberg. Her apology said she was attending a sitting of the North West legislature and would join the virtual meeting if she finished in time. She didn’t appear. She’s done this before. Parliamentary committee chairperson Nqabisa Gantsho was furious: “Several undertakings were made at the conclusion of the previous meeting, including written responses, details on concession agreements and land claims, information on employee ownership and transformation statistics, and submission of the final PETT (Provincial Elephant Task Team) report. “Most of these reports from the department have still not been submitted to Parliament, which cripples and undermines the work of Parliament.” DA MP Andrew de Blocq reminded the committee that the MEC had failed to attend a previous meeting on the issue. “It’s the second week in a row that we’ve been pushed out by the MEC,” he said “She has already forced a postponement of this agenda item.” Culling worry The MEC’s absence left officials and North West Parks representatives to gloss over a strategy that could lead to nearly 1,000 elephants being removed from Madikwe over five years. The options include translocation, contraception and lethal removal. Hunting has also been retained as a possible intervention. The scale and controversy of the plan might have suggested a need for maximum disclosure. Instead, MPs were given a presentation based on a provincial task team report they had not received. Notably, the conclusion of the report was not detailed. De Blocq described that presentation as “fairly scant” and asked when the complete report would be released for public comment. “There were 34 different scenarios that the team evaluated,” he said. “What other 33 scenarios or management interventions were considered by the task team? That would be very useful for us and the general public at large to be able to interrogate this in proper detail.” North West officials confirmed that the report existed, but could not tell committee chair Gantsho when it would be made public. “Yes, we do have it,” a North West Parks official responded, “but we are still making sure that we work on everything that has to be worked on… The next step is for it to go to the public, and definitely we’ll make sure that it reaches the public in due course.” “I’m not convinced by your response,” Gantsho responded, “ because I do not understand: if you’re saying the report is ready…” Wider breakdown The failure to produce the task team report was part of a wider breakdown in accountability. During an October 2025 oversight visit to Madikwe and Pilanesberg by parliamentarians, North West officials undertook to provide reports on concession agreements, land claims, transformation, community benefits and the final elephant task-team findings. Nine months later, none of those reports had been submitted. In her opening remarks, Gantsho said this “cripples and undermines the work of Parliament”. She said the committee expected evidence of progress, firm timelines and accountability, all of which were missing from the province’s submission. “What we are doing today is what we were doing during oversight nine months ago,” said MK Party MP Siyabonga Mkhize. “What I just realised is that we are just back to square one”, where it had been during the oversight visit. “This presentation cannot simply become another collection of scientific recommendations,” he said. “Implementation requires names, budgets, deadlines and measurable benefits to communities. Otherwise there is no accountability.” Mkhize noted that the province still had no costed implementation plan, clearly identified funding or time-bound accountability structure. Another committee member, MK’s Tshepo Themba, said MPs had expected the MEC and her team to submit the outstanding report. “So far, nothing has been done, so we are disappointed on that matter,” he said. Even the customary list identifying the North West delegation had not been sent to the committee before the meeting. Reading the tone of questioning, it appeared that, taken together, the absent MEC, missing reports, incomplete submission and refusal to provide publication dates suggested more than simple administrative disorganisation. It showed a provincial authority treating oversight by the country’s highest legislative body as an inconvenience. NSPCA exclusion The most confrontational exchange concerned the exclusion of the NSPCA from the Provincial Elephant Task Team. A directive from the committee chair, said de Blocq, issued more than a year earlier, that the statutory animal-welfare body be included, had been ignored. The NSPCA had also not been given the task team’s minutes. “The Madikwe-Pilanesberg concessionaires have been consistently excluded from this process,” de Blocq said. “The Madikwe-Pilanesberg communities have been excluded from this process. They also don’t have representation on the Provincial Task Team.” This was particularly serious, he said, because communities were significant landowners and the task team was making recommendations affecting tourism, cultural sites and community businesses. North West Parks chairperson Khorimmbi Matibe defended the NSPCA’s exclusion by arguing that, because its statutory focus was animal welfare and because elephants in Madikwe and Pilanesberg were not hand-fed animals, but animals that fended for themselves, “there shouldn’t be an impression that it is obligatory and mandatory by law for the MEC to then include them”. He said it was up to the MEC to determine when to involve the NSPCA on issues relating to its welfare mandate. Gantsho rejected that position. “We are not happy,” she said. “It is unacceptable – the exclusion of the communities and NSPCA and also the concessionaires from the issues that directly affect them.” The province’s claim that the MEC could decide whom to invite, she said, was “really unacceptable [to] us. We can’t allow that to happen.” Gantsho said the committee would raise the matter with the national minister and deputy ministers. While the Animal Protection Act does not automatically give the NSPCA a seat on every governmental task team, it does permit it jurisdiction and investigative rights to prevent animal ill-treatment and wide investigative powers into the treatment of animals within human control, as at Madikwe. Crisis created through delay MPs also challenged North West Parks over its failure to introduce elephant contraception when it was offered at no cost years ago. An agreement with Humane World for Animals was concluded in 2022, but the programme was never implemented. The NGO remains on standby to implement this. Earlier evidence to Parliament indicated that the delay had resulted in at least 400 avoidable elephant births, with many adult females now pregnant. “Why wasn’t contraception implemented five or 10 years ago?” de Blocq asked. “There have been offers of free contraceptive services. There are MOUs in place.” A North West technical representative conceded that contraception had been a “missed opportunity” and said he could not explain why it had not been implemented. That failure now sees North West claiming Madikwe requires urgent intervention, with more than 1,600 elephants in the fenced reserve. The province and parks board had “completely failed to be proactive”, said de Blocq, creating the crisis they now claimed to be managing. It was a situation intensified by years of official inaction. He also refuted hunting being presented as a population-management tool, calling it an economic tool that could be “dangerous and reckless” in reserves dependent on international photographic tourism. MPs asked who would benefit financially from elephant removals, whether hunting would damage tourism and whether the logistical and financial feasibility of killing or moving hundreds of elephants had been assessed. Clear answers were not provided. What is North West hiding? While North West did not expressly tell Parliament that it lacked the power to summon the MEC, its conduct sent a similar message: the committee may request attendance, reports and stakeholder participation, while the province decides whether to comply. MP questioning revealed that the complete task-team report remains hidden, the alternative scenarios remain hidden, the costs remain unknown, the implementation dates remain vague and the communities, concessionaires and NSPCA remain outside the body making the crucial recommendations. Until the province releases the complete report, explains its failure to implement contraception and allows all affected parties into the process, an inevitable question will continue to hang over Madikwe’s elephants: What are North West Parks and MEC Lenkopane trying to hide? DM Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly named the North West Parks chairperson as Dr Mathews Mogopa. The chairperson is Khorimmbi Matibe. (Updated: 14 August 2026)