Chairperson, today we have an extraordinary privilege to present to the Portfolio Committee for Sport and Recreation the 2011–2012 Annual Report of the Department of Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA).
Honourable Members, the Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA) is hereby presenting its Annual Report to this House of Parliament of the Republic of South Africa, the National Assembly, to fulfil its obligations as outlined in the Constitution of the Republic. This Annual Report is the outline and a systematic account of the SRSA activities and all the entities reporting to it to the people of South Africa.
It is aimed at giving the nation a clear picture of progress made since April 2011.It is also aimed at giving a chronological account on the Strategic Plan 2011-2015 as it was broken down into Annual Plans and Activities that were primarily geared at realising the stated objectives of the 2011 – 2015 Strategic Plan.
At the same time this report will give an account on finances of the Department on annual basis worked towards the integration of the National Sport and Recreation Plan (NSRP) as adopted by the National Sport and Recreation Indaba (NSRI) in November 2011.
Ladies and Gentlemen, SRSA has a legislative mandate to take overall responsibility for sport and recreation in South Africa. This includes promotion and development of sport and recreation, co-ordination of the relationships between National Federations (NFs) and other agencies, provision for interventions to correct imbalances in sport and recreation, and to promote equitable access and proper governance in sport and recreation. SRSA has been seen as a facilitator and regulator in terms of the National Sport and Recreation Act (NSRA).
Hence the report is tailored to acutely respond to the requirements of Outcome Number 12(b) of Government. In the alignment with the shift of government to an outcome orientated approach to planning and delivery, we are also expected to play our part in the overall government planning and delivery mechanisms.
Our Annual Report, to this end, shows SRSA’s contribution in the field of sport and recreation to the government’s Five Year Medium Term Strategic Framework and Programme of Action. This report will also account on the contribution of sport and recreation towards the realisation of the objectives of the developmental state.
It is again the same music that the SRSA has received an unqualified audit report for the year 2011/12, as it was in the 2010/11 Annual Report. This epitomises our fervent drive to maintain clean audit findings, and our unwavering pursuit of the highest level of prudence and accountability of how we manage and utilise public funds.
It is a consequential drive of our intolerance of any form of mismanagement, misappropriation and/or financial dishonesty. Whilst some challenges remain, we will continue with this fundamental imperative to promote clean governance; free of irregularities, malfeasance and indiscretion.
We are co-operating with the Auditor-General in improving sound financial and non-financial management. We continue to manage and implement all processes and outcomes that we undertook with the AG to ensure adherence to proper governance prescripts and measures.
Our expenditure in the year under review stood at 98.8% as compared to 99.7% the previous year, and the other years over; a mere decline under-spending of 0.9%.This performance could still be accounted for on the resounding improvement from a concern rose from the previous financial periods which overemphasised, in part, the perpetual under expenditure that had afflicted the Department. It is our conviction that, under-expenditure denotes poor budgetary planning, deficient organisational management, and more importantly, lack of synergies between the strategy and allocation of resources.
This improved expenditure patterns underscores improving functional efficiencies and optimal performance in the delivery of our services, national priorities and performance indicators. The Director-General and the Chief Financial Officer will report at length on this subject.
However, we also informed this committee that our strategic programmes will not be realised unless sufficient resources are made available. We committed ourselves that we will do everything possible to secure additional financial resources, but, in the main, the baseline allocation from National Treasury will have to be increased in order for SRSA to fully deliver on its mandate. The Director-General and the Chief Operations Officer will dwell on this matter.
In this regard, during the year under review, SRSA understood that to achieve these epic objectives demands that we work together in consort with all our stakeholders, including, Parliament, SASCOC, National federations as well as our communities, to ensure that we fully unlock our value proposition. We are confident that the plans put forward in the 2011-2015 Strategic Plan and other epic policy documents reaped benefits for sport and recreation and the nation as a whole during the year under review.
Simply stated, social partnership is a swivel that anchors our common and shared vision, an impervious philosophy of working together to construct a collective and common good for all.
Chairperson, in sum, our Annual Report for 2011-2012 is a tool to officially account on the execution of our Department’s mandate to create possibilities to enable many South Africans of varied backgrounds and disciplines to have access to sport and recreation activities, in particular the marginalised communities.
In the 2010/2011 SRSA Annual Report, we announced our intentions to submit 2010 FIFA World Cup Country Report to Cabinet as a matter of urgency. The Country Report was submitted to Cabinet; the report is a collation of evidence gathered from commissioned an empirical research, the reports of stakeholders and their findings. It also provides the country with socio-economic benefits generated from hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
Today we report, through this 2011/2012 Annual Report, to all South Africans armed with the first ever National Sport and Recreation Plan for South Africa. The report was tabled to Cabinet and is anchored by the Transformation Charter and Scorecards. This National Sport and Recreation Plan justifies our claim of a ‘Case for Sport’ which is supported by growing evidence that sport is an indispensable tool to fundamentally alter the quality of life of all our people and it is a vehicle for progressive human advancement and socio-economic upliftment. Hence, Cabinet has adopted the National Sport and Recreation Plan with the Transformation Charter and its stated Scorecards.
We have in the year under review established the Eminent Persons Group on Transformation in South Africa and the Ministerial Advisory Committee as part of the consequential of the National Sport and Recreation Indaba. The aforementioned structures have commenced with their duties in earnest and line with their respective terms of reference. Their recommendations will form the basis of overall assessment and policy trajectory and praxis for the future sport and recreation dispensation in our country.
Going forward it is important to note that the National Sport and Recreation Plan (NSRP) will become an integral part of the program of government of the Republic and it shall be integrated into the new National Development Plan of the country. After-which it will be integrated into all spheres of government once costed to ensure its successful implementation. For the very first time we have a concrete and integrated plan that will deal holistically with Sport and Recreation development at all levels of participation in South Africa.
In the year under review, we are further extolled and enthused to also report that Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA) has since, the adoption of the NSRP and the revised White Paper, unleashed the potential of thousands of South African youth in schools. Through the launch of the first-ever School Sport Programme in November 2011 and subsequently rolled-out the School Sport Programme at the‘Kick-Off’ event that took place in Vlakfontein High School, Mamelodi, in March 2012. There is visible movement.
Together with the Department of Basic Education (DBE) we have pulled all stops to implement sport and recreation in all schools of the Republic whilst at the same time making compulsory physical education work for all the learners. It is fulfilling for me to report that to date we have managed to register more than 11 000 out of 27 000 schools for the 2012 School Sport programme and the number is growing. By the end of 2013 we aim to double this number of registered schools to reach all the public schools of South Africa.
However, in implementing Vision 2020 let us all focus on the school sport programme. Our school sport programme is the bed-rock for the elite sport in our country. Like many of our athletes they started their careers in school. If we fail our school sport programme we will be failing the National Sport and Recreation Plan; and this will be failing Vision 2020.
Chairperson, school sport remains bedrock for talent identification and nurturing, and more importantly, mass participation in sport. In this regard, the Department together with the Department of Basic Education has officially rolled-out the school sport programme together with the introduction of compulsory physical education to all schools of the Republic of South Africa.
We have finalised, adopted and implemented the memorandum of agreement with the Department of Basic Education to make schools sport participation and development an integral part of a total scholarship. In December 2012 we will host the first ever national Youth Olympics for all the schools of the Republic.
Honourable Members, one of the success factors and milestones in the period under review is the hosting of ‘Magnificent Fridays’. ‘ Magnificent Fridays’ campaign was intended to galvanise the entire nation to stand behind their heroes and heroines and help them to achieve their best in the respective international sport tournaments scheduled for 2011 whilst at the same time building unity and cohesion. The sport tournaments were Cricket and Rugby World Cups and Netball International Championships.
The Department of Sport and Recreation together with the Department of Arts and Culture as well as our Provincial Departments of Sport and Recreation rolled out and hosted the ‘Magnificent Fridays’ in different provinces. South African citizens were encouraged to wear sport T-shirts of the three different national teams every Fridays, to sing the National Anthem and raise/fly high the SA Flag.
Also during this financial year we have hosted a successful South African Sports Awards in Sun City at the Northwest Province. The 2011 SA Sport Awards was a revamped and renewed event of the SRSA to award excellence and success towards our athletes and sportspersons. It was a very successful extravaganza for the sport community in South Africa. We are looking forward to organise and host a better and bigger SA Sport Awards in November 2012.
Similarly, youth camps are our strategic anchor to social cohesion in order to ensure that young people work co-operatively across race, ethnicity, gender, geographical location, class, language and creed. Youth camps provide such a platform for youth gatherings, networks and programmes to help to empower and promote the inclusion of disadvantaged youth especially, disabled youth, out of school youth, youth at risk, unemployed youth and rural youth.
For the first time again SRSA together with the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) have assembled youth camps across the length and breadth of this country. Youth camps provided an opportunity for our youth to be once again active interested in life with increased self-esteem, promote patriotism, sense of citizenship as well as nationhood.
As we reported during the 2010/2011 Annual Report, we continue to implement pro-active and concrete measures as we turn-around the department. We are finalising the new structure of the Department which will elevate the levels of responsibility of many posts as a measure, as well to attract and retain skills and capacity. Building capacity, as part of the broader organisational repositioning, will ensure that the Department stops to operate as a pigeon hole, and starts to function as a centre of excellence in implementing programmatic projects and organisational activities.
We believe that our Department has lived according to the expectation of the PC on sport and recreation and that of the people of the Republic. We are particularly concerned by the assertions of some in this committee who go out of their way and raise issues that are out of context to the life of sport in this country. We are particularly concerned by the assertions of Honourable Mr Rabotapi.
What is very strange is that the DA's Mr Rabotapi is raising matters that he knows must be served before the Portfolio Committee he is serving on. We expect that our citizenry must be properly informed by our Members of Parliament without fear or favour; but the behaviour of Mr Rabotapi lives much to be desired as if he is serving the interests of others in our polity including the media and he is determined to mislead our people in everything he does.
I am convinced Honourable Rabotapi is irreverent to this Parliament and the people of South Africa .Instead, he indulges himself into cheap political posture that do not serve the interests of our people; in general and the interests of the sports people in particular.
As that may be; it is our submission that it is without a doubt that the budget allocation to SRSA remains meager and small compared to the projects that the Department is and could execute. In many cases, the Department is compelled to defer, abandon or scale down on the projects, or in other cases sought the assistance of the private sector. This is unattainable and must be reversed at once. It is our understanding that the new NSRP will also come with the funding model to ensure optimal output and delivery.
We are on record as having said that, ‘Federations must get their houses in order and adhere to transparency and good corporate governance. We are not a crises management team and we are shall not be reduced to one by self-seeking individuals with no regard to national pride and honour.
To this end, we would like to assure the members that we have taken stock of the recent developments in Cricket SA and Athletic South Africa with a view to bring closure to the long public spat that have marred the sporting fraternity. We have concluded all matters regarding to these, and are awaiting report from the affected federations including SASCOC in line with the National Sport and Recreation Act to look into the matter as raised above and revert to us.
As promised before, we will continue to develop proper monitoring and evaluation capacity in order to ensure that we monitor and sharpen our delivery capability. In the year under review, we are still sorting out the outstanding incidents of officials which have contracted suppliers without approved delegation, a typical and regrettable irregularity of public spent.
Whilst investigations proceed to correct these forms of malice, our message is still very clear that we detest and will not tolerate these forms of graft and impropriety. Harsh measures have been mooted, but, will be meted against all those that transgress the codes and prescripts of proper public financial management.
Honourable Members, we have closed the year 2011 with the completion of both the Country Report on the hosting of the 2010 FIFA World Cup and other strategic programmes of the Department as well as the Hundred (100) Days Report of the Ministry of Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA) in Office including the tabling of this annual report today.
We can however boast that both the year 2011 and 2012 have been wonderful and happy periods in the history of sport and recreation in our country and for the people of the Republic of South Africa, Africa and the world.
Ladies and Gentlemen, progress has been made since 1994 in sport and recreation, however, more still needs to be done to level the playing field in sport. We still witness an inaccessible and unequal landscape in sport as well as lack of a fully funded sport development and system in the Republic.
Therefore, this Annual Report is an honest account of the progress made since 01 April 2011 to put sport at the centre of the national goals of the democratic developmental state to correct the imbalances of the past and deliver sport and recreation to all.
Chairperson I am pleased to officially table the SRSA Annual Report to the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa.
Thank you.
Remarks of the Minister of Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA), Honourable Mr Fikile April Mbalula (MP), on the occasion of the Tabling of the SRSA Annual Report 2011/2012 to the Parliament’s Portfolio Committee for Sport and Recreation.
