Corruption scandal taints Robben Island Museum

For 25 years, Robben Island, a former leper colony off the coast near Cape Town, was notorious as the prison which held Nelson Mandela. Following the release of the ANC leader and the collapse of apartheid, it was reborn as one of South Africa's most popular tourist attractions.

Now the island has become symbolic of the deep problems afflicting the Rainbow Nation. Foremost among them: crime, incompetence and corruption.

The management of the Robben Island Museum, where guided tours are conducted by former prisoners - a place designated as a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 1999 - has been condemned for 'gross mismanagement, fraud and outright theft'.

The allegations contained in a forensic audit were leaked to South Africa's Mail and Guardian newspaper, leading one Robben Island board member to accuse the 'management of the island treating it like their own private ATM'.

Following the disclosure of the report, the museum put out a statement announcing that its chief executive and two other senior members of its staff had been suspended 'pending disciplinary proceedings', and that the management of the museum would be 'restructured'.

The report into the museum's management by a consultancy, Orca, had identifed a massive hole in the museum's accounts sufficient, it concluded, to suggest evidence of criminal misconduct.

'For every rand received from tourism revenue, R2.50 was paid to staff. Salary increases were in excess of inflation and salary increases to executive management [were] 259 per cent between 2004-2007. General salaries increased by 29 per cent between 2006-2007,' the audit report found. 'Costs [grew] six times faster than revenue.'

While many of the allegations centre on the the purchase of a new ferry to carry tourists to the island in Table Bay, the most serious problems appear to have occurred elsewhere. There appears to have been loss of fuel intended for the ferry on such a large scale that the auditors concluded that it could only have been 'siphoned off'.

According to the report the souvenir shop on Robben Island also appears to have been the source of fraud and theft. The report alleges that '19 money bags went missing on 19 different days'. The shop's bank records were also adrift by almost 10m rand (£685,616).

Among those suspended last week was Paul Langa, the former political prisoner turned museum chief executive who last month complained that the museum was 'crippled' by lack of funds. Langa was himself appointed after a similar controversy had involved the previous management.