Provincial Sport and Recreation Indaba by MEC Sibongile Manana
The Executive Mayor of Mbombela Councillor Cathy Dlamini
Members of Mayoral Committees
Traditional Leaders
Leaders of Mpumalanga Sport Confederation
Leaders of Sport and Recreation Structures
Representatives of Sport and Recreation South Africa
Head of Department for Sport, Arts and Culture from Limpopo
Sports Councils
Business Sector
Members of the media
Ladies and gentlemen
Programme director, I am proud to stand before you today here at the Mbombela Stadium and my heart is filled with great pride that we are at this venue which hosted one of the greatest tournaments in the world. A year ago this venue was abuzz with activities as it hosted four matches of the first ever FIFA World Cup on African soil.
Doomsayers said the stadium would be a white elephant after the tournament, but to their disappointment, that has not happened and it will never happen because the venue has been fully utilised post the football tournament. It has successfully hosted football and rugby matches as well as other events and we will continue to bring world class activities for our people.
We are here to participate in the Mpumalanga Sport and Recreation Indaba as Spot loving people where we are expected to deliberate and be agents of positive changes who will immensely contribute towards making our country a winning nation on matters of sport. As government, we know that alone we could not achieve the mandate of creating sport stars in the country and it is for this reason that we have engaged all sport stakeholders in the province to participate in the shaping of a plan that will enable us to move in one direction when we address matters of sport as we need uniformity so that we could move in the same direction and broaden the impact of interventions that we identify to take sport forward.
Minister Fikile Mbalula launched the National Sport and Recreation Indaba on 5 April 2011 in a bid to make the South African sport more inclusive and develop a National Sport Plan for the country and ourselves as Mpumalanga we have gathered in this fashion to contribute to this noble plan so that our ideas and ideals could be incorporated into the National Sport Plan. We initiated this by going to the grass roots level where we hosted Regional Sport Izindaba where we solicited views from regions and this culminated into the Provincial Indaba that we are hosting this weekend and we shall not leave the Mbombela Stadium without having immensely contributed to the cause that will produce champions in the country.
We need collective action of all sport stakeholders so that we could together produce a plan that will bind all of us so that we can optimise the development agenda as we all have a common interest of opening opportunities to all in the sport sector and therefore you will agree with me that the agenda that brings us here together is of uttermost importance and we have ahead of us important two days that will determine how we are going to vigorously roll out sport in the province.
We urge all delegates into this Indaba to participate fully and air their views as our reason for conveying the Indaba is to listen to all of you without any prejudice and we therefore would want to urge all of you not to see this as just another talkshow as resolutions emerging from our deliberations will determine what we as a province contribute to the National Sport Plan. We encourage vibrant and disciplined debates that will contribute towards reaching transformation objectives that we have set for ourselves and we need to look into how we could benefit from the scientific approach which is very important in modern sport as we need to be on par with other countries that are benefitting from this approach.
Our overall aim is to see sport people working in an organised manner and ensuring that resources put aside for sport development achieve this objective and owning the sport policies in place in the country.
This year is an important year for sport in the country as three of our teams participate in the International Championships and so far two of them, the Spar Netball Team and the Proteas have been eliminated in the quarterfinals of the world championships in netball and cricket respectively and our hopes are now with the Springboks and we are optimistic that they will be able to defend the Web Ellis Trophy that we won in 2007.
We need to produce players from the lower ranks so that our professional teams could have a pool to select from but at the present moment, we are not doing a good job and unless we change tactics, we run the risk of failing to even qualify for International Championships. We therefore need in our planning to respond to these challenges and identify practical means on how our sport programmes could respond to the challenges alluded above. Sport Administrators must tell us why they have failed to produce new talent as money has been pumped into various programmes but there is little to show for it and we need to eliminate this unfortunate tendency where we don’t see positive results from investments that are put towards sport.
As government, we have agreed on a Road Map for Optimal Performance and Functional Excellence in sport and our key strategic areas of focus to achieve this are:
- transformation
- school sport
- recreation
- mass participation
- institutional mechanisms
- funding
We want to see South Africans from all walks of life more in particular those from disadvantaged backgrounds having access and participating in sport and there is no one who must be afraid of transformation as it cannot be correct for sport to be the prerogative of a select few and we need to together create equal opportunities for all our people. We need to emerge from this Indaba with resolutions on how as Mpumalanga we are going to contribute to the Transformation Charter at the National Indaba.
School Sport is failing to produce stars like it used to do yesteryears and we are excited that we seem to be all agreeing that we need to move with vigour so that the same vibrancy that our school sport competitions were known for could be revitalised. The establishment of school sport leagues is welcome and we need to earnestly make this a reality noting that school sport could be a catalyst to produce stars that we want and we should therefore resolve that in every school, school activities should be of paramount importance and therefore there shall be no school that would not have a school sport programme and there should also be consequences for schools that attempt to frustrate this cause.
Our Mass Mobilisation efforts are well supported in the province as we have managed to rekindle support for sport and the attendance of sport events at the Mbombela Stadium bears testimony to this as we have seen on Tuesday that the Mbombela Stadium was packed when Amabhakabhaka showed Tottenham Hotspurs how i-diski is played and our visitors were chasing shadows for a better part of the game and we should be happy that we have attracted Jomo Cosmos to our stadium and they will play some of their bigger games in our stadium.
Our mission should be supporting teams from the province in the National First Division which are Sivutsa Stars, Mpumalanga Black Aces and Witbank Spurs so that one of them qualifies for the Premier Soccer League as this will guarantee regular action in our stadium. The crowd did not disappoint when the Pumas played yesterday against the Sharks and we urge all of you to help mobilise our people to come to the stadium in large numbers in the upcoming activities.
I want to urge all delegates to refrain from only calling for more resources as we need to establish how we utilised funds that were previously allocated to us for sport development and we need a frank assessment that would help us to make an introspection that would establish if the funds were properly dispensed and contributed to sport advancement.
After the introspection, we will then identify means that will ensure that funds allocated for sport are used for this purpose and thus contribute to the development of sport men and women in the province. Our municipalities have a role to play as more often resources that must be used to improve facilities in our areas are allocated for other causes therefore our sport loving people must be encouraged to participate in the formulation of IDPs so that they could arrest the unfortunate trend where resources in municipalities that should be used to improve facilities for sport are used for other purposes.
I want to take this opportunity and wish all delegates and participants to the Indaba fruitful and successful deliberations, so that as we move to the National Sport and Recreation Indaba, our ideas will nourish the National Sport Plan so that we can become a winning nation that will be the envy of the rest of the world.
I thank you.
