Pretoria - Freedom Park has reopened today after being closed in March when the country went into national lockdown.
Chief executive Jane Mufamadi said the facility had undergone rigorous measures to ensure it was prepared for reopening.
“We had to put a lot in place so that we comply, such as updating our occupational health standards and coming up with an employee and visitor protocol which guides everyone.
“We placed sanitiser stands throughout the site, and all people entering must go through screening.”
She said they had also established a Covid-19 steering committee and compliance officer to regulate and guide the whole process, as well as rigorous training of staff so they know how to work going forward.
“There have been a lot of preparations, with regular cleaning and meetings with cleaning staff on how to work. We had to do a lot of adjustment to ensure space and sufficient ventilation as well.”
She said there were challenges with the process due to the size of the facility, but that had since been addressed.
While Covid-19 has disrupted the tourism industry, Freedom Park also suffered losses as income dried up. “The five-and-half-month closure had a huge impact on us; our major shareholder cut the budget by a large fraction, and we lost revenue from school visits, hosting events, venue hiring and photography. When you are experiencing budget cuts then you are not making money.
Mufamadi also said they had to revise annual performances programmes. “We had already committed and were going to bring 10 artists from different cultural groups; some had been paid, and some money we could not recover.
“We had to revise big celebrations and had to host some events digitally and that had an impact, in terms of creating revenue and growing Freedom Park. We developed some plans to try to mitigate and recover, they may be slow but we hope to gain traction.”
She said initiatives like taking a mobile exhibition truck as part of outreaches to schools were in the pipeline. “Some of the products will be temporary and others permanent; for instance we will have a temporary sports, arts and culture hero exhibition and we are hoping to attract new clientele such as sport lovers.
“We are also installing a permanent exhibition in the gallery of leaders honouring national, continental and international leaders who inspired us.”
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Pretoria News