9.11 Termination of Tourism Enterprise Partnership (TEP) funding The Committee noted with concern that the Department had informed TEP management that funding for this important tourism SMME development agency will be terminated in 2016. The Committee is concerned that there vast knowledge and expertise of TEP in tourism SMME development will be lost in the sector. The departmental capacity to run the SMME development programmes similar to TEP is questionable and this may lead to a collapse of many emerging tourism enterprises.