PICTURE: INSTAGRAM/ LERATO MVELASE
Multi-award-winning actress Lerato Mvelase has urged the government to regulate travel agents.
This comes after a travel agency named Black Trotters Africa allegedly scammed her of over half a million, while she was planning a surprise international trip for her mother and loved ones. According to Sunday World, this would have been her mother’s first international trip.
“We paid R640, 000 for a family of eight,” she said.
According to Lerato, they discovered that the payment covered only flights. There were no visas, accommodation or entertainment arrangements ever secured, reported the publication.
Lerato shared in an online video that the company allegedly liquidates and rebrands after complaints arise. She also shared that this came as a shock because she has worked with the company before.
“I didn’t think someone I had worked with before, someone I was supporting, would do anything like this,” she said.
In a direct appeal, Lerato urged the Department of Tourism, industry leaders and private sector stakeholders to intervene, alleging that unethical practices by certain operators are damaging the integrity of the tourism sector.
She claimed to be shocked by the number of people who have allegedly been affected by the same company.
“They steal from our families and our children in the most brazen way, then rebrand and do it all over again,” she alleged, urging authorities to address what she described as a “rot” within the industry.
Instagram users weighed in:
Actress Masasa Mbangeni said: “Im so sorry this has happened to you. I truly am. Because I know you, as a black business owner yourself I know how integrity is the very fibre of how you deal with people and associates and so I can understand how this violation has been so traumatic for you and I’m so so so sorry truly.”
Media personality Wanda Baloyi said: “Oh my friend. This is so powerful. You don’t understand the magnitude of what you just did. This is a movement and movement cannot be stopped. God is at work and justice will be served.”
While another Instagram user said: “‘God you in situations so that people can know the power that’s in you , and people can see the God you My sister.”
Also see: New achievement: Lerato Mvelase graduates with MBA