I would like to put on record the work done by the Ministry of Sport and Recreation South Africa into transformation in the South African rugby. This article is a respectful response to the accusations leveled against me and the Sport and Recreation SA emanating from my comments in New Zealand on the welcoming function of the Springboks.
These innuendos and mischievous comments about transformation in Rugby are fuelled by a misunderstanding of my statements to encourage South Africans to support amaBhokoBhoko in the world cup extravaganza.
In January 2011, Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA) together with all the Members of Executive Councils (MECs) and the South African Sport Confederation Council (SASCOC) and Sport Federations met at the strategic planning in Misty Hills – Johannesburg.
The Department of Sports and Recreation South Africa at this Strategic Planning Session on 10 to 12 January 2011emerged with an integrated and comprehensive plan to take sport and recreation to greater horizons. This plan is a “Road Map to Optimal Performance and Functional Excellence” for the department, both in its strategic operations and impact to the broader society.
It is an instructive campus that will aid the department to navigate, typical and atypical topographies in its quest for wholesale transformation of sports and recreation. It will direct the department’s programmes, priorities, delivery agreements and the White Paper processes.
This Road Map provides a strategic direction to reposition and turn the department around, and engender systemic efficiencies, whilst raising the bar on functional operations, and accelerated service delivery. It provides a compendium to transform the department into an agile, athletic and responsive institutional architecture, poised to accelerate unity of purpose, social cohesion and nationhood.
This trade epitomises a new beginning, a new paradigm of a vibrant epoch for both the leadership and management of sport and recreation in South Africa to confront complex set of challenges and opportunities with much vigour, vibe and resolution. It is predicated on no illusions of the daunting task that lies ahead. However, its import and outcomes are premised on what John Stuart Mills calls the “combined conscience and collective wisdom”, which is the collective drive for all of us to succeed.
The renewed zing and zest by all (as displayed at the session) to work together signifies the zeal to dislodge all elements of counter-transformation in every sphere of life, and in sport in particular, and replace them with paradigms and people who are imbued with the resurgent culture of service, civic duty and voluntarism.
In sum, the fundamental import of our plan and its outcomes is to construct an overarching strategy, and chart a common and shared vision, underscored by action-based strategic priorities. We are delighted that the Workshop achieved this strategic imperative, and we can now clearly outline what is to be done - by whom, when, how, what resources are needed, both human capital and financial.
The plan as adopted at the strategy workshop delineates six key strategic areas of focus which translate into action our overriding theme of Optimal Performance and Functional Excellence. These areas are:
i. Transformation
ii. Schools sport
iii. Institutional mechanisms
iv. Mass mobilisation
v. Recreation
vi. Funding
These critical success factors provide a new paradigm that will guide and direct the new thinking and thesis of the department in its total functionality. These imperatives will inform and influence our five year strategic horison, which is disaggregated into annual operational frameworks in the short, medium and long term.
On the issue of transformation, there is limited doubt that there is a need for a considerable departure from the current paradigms on the application of transformation prescripts and practices. Both in geo-sociological content and eco-political form, transformation denotes to a complete and fundamental change which radically affects the nature of something, especially for the better. These are the ethos we shall engender as we improve and transform the profile our sport and recreation in South Africa.
In essence, our strategic outlook on transformation is loud and clear: Adapt or die! In pursuit of this noble objective to transform our sector in totality, we therefore resolved to undertake the following critical interventions:
a) To develop a transformation perspective and a framework, coupled with a national transformation policy that will incorporate transformation action plans and programmes by 30 March 2011.
b) To finalise the transformation audit by 30 April 2011, in order to a get clear picture of transformation progress.
c) To draft a Transformation Charter with clear deliverables and milestones by end June 2011.
d) To discard the old and obsolete and replace it with the new and progressive. To do so in this exercise we have charged the department, provinces and SASCOC to be more circumspect in finding unity between this thesis and anti-thesis and thereby deriving our collective sport and recreation thesis.
e) To develop annual targets with outputs by 30 June 2011, evaluated over a three year period. These will include clear deliverables and score card in a short term.
f) To speedily reconfigure the departmental institutional measures and budgetary mechanisms, to enable faster and focused implementation of our transformation priorities, and simultaneously build senior capacity that will enable us to monitor and evaluate the implementation of these strategic policy imperatives.
The Department of Sport and Recreation South Africa will lead and drive this transformation process, and continuously evaluate progress, including reports in all MinMECs on progress or lack thereof.
In this regard, all processes are in place. The department is preparing for its national Sport and Recreation Indaba which will take place in November to adopt many resolutions regarding to transformation in sport and adopt a transformation charter with clear score-cards for transformation for each federation. We expect the national Sport and Recreation Indaba to produce a national sport and recreation plan – a first of its kind in the Republic – that will change the landscape of our sector for good and for the better.
Therefore, Rugby is not immune to this process. As a federation, it will be expected of the SA Rugby like any other Federation to provide the nation with their transformation agenda with dedicated deliverables.
My comments in New Zealand about transformation in SA rugby where informed by this process that the sport community in the Republic have set itself to achieve when we met in Misty Hills in January 2011.
I want to caution South Africans to refrain from entertaining transformation debates only when we approach mega events like the Rugby World Cups. The transformation debate should continue to pre-occupy the minds of our people even after the world cups. We must de-learn the tendency of questioning the representation of black players only when the national squad is announced on the eve of the event and thereafter we live it to chance.
Since 1994, our pre-occupation and prejudice has been shown through our skewed support landed to the ‘Big Federations and Sporting Codes’. As a consequence we found all and sundry bickering about quotas and lack of representatively in the national squads such as rugby and cricket. Even lunatic fringes entered the debate on the basis of the false notion and polarisation thus leading to untold confusion and mayhem amongst our people. Hence, the issue of representativity, quotas and springbok merchandise is raise with much alacrity during the world championships; and in my view this serves only our purpose to denigrate the players and sell South Africa short to the international community.
It is for this reason that we state the fact again that we are for excellence and quality. The Springboks are an epitome of these values that we together with many young people cherish and find in our fellow countrymen – the World Champions – that they are and will continue to be. For that reason, we restate the fact that the leadership and management of rugby should account for immediate, medium and long-term development and transformation of rugby so that it is inclusive and non-racial; and over and above; a reflection of the South African talent and demographics.
Our long-term game plan takes into account the provision of facilities and recreational facilities in all our communities, especially townships and rural areas. This is capital intensive exercise that will require all-round support from the public and private sector. Collaborative efforts are in place to also maximise international collaborations for all our programmes. Our aim, in this regard, is to build a solid infrastructural base, delivery architecture and sustainable human capital development programmes.
Our people in their individual and collective wisdom should desist from the notion of ‘eventisation’ of transformation in our country. Transformation is not about events; and is not an event; it is a process. We must carefully nurture our energies to what is going to succeed. Events come and go; but transformation as a discourse will stay with us for many years to come as we deal decisively with the decades of the legacy of apartheid colonialism. This should be a corner stone for a sustained programme of transformation in sport and recreation especially rugby.
As Steve Biko once said: “It is better to die for an idea that will live, than to live for an idea that will die”.
Grassroots development and massification of sport and recreation that should take its foundation from the strong schools sport structures and tailored club development. This programme should be supported by a dedicated and thoroughgoing sport science intervention strategy.
In the immediate, SRSA has prioritised schools sport and grassroots sport development as anchors and incubators for high performance sport. We want the nation to focus on schools sport and mass participation in sport as foundations to break the backbone of multi-racial and racist sport in South Africa. South Africans should begin now to question the role of franchisee and monopoly capital in South African rugby.
At present and in medium term, we are collaborating with SA Rugby with a view to leverage on the Provincial Sport Academies, the South African Defence Force, the South African Police Service and Correctional Service’s facilities to promote rugby in all communities to build the requisite talent that our people so much yearn for in order for us to achieve equity, equality and representativity.
Another strategic point of entry in the debate for transformation in rugby as a sport must be channelled in the transformation of the management and administration of rugby including the boardroom, selection committees and chain management; coupled with development and selection at club level through to provincial and national structures of rugby.
We cannot win this battle if we are going to throw stones at our national team at a time when they need us the most in order to win the world cup. These boys are not selecting themselves; they are not part of the decision-making when it comes to who will constitute the team. Their only cry at this hour of need is a spiritual support from all our people. Hence we urge all South Africans to be behind amaBhokoBhoko in their mission in New Zealand.
Our boys continue to make us proud. They won against Wales in our opening match of the world cup on the 10 September 2011; and they further made us proud when they clashed with Fiji on the 17 September 2011. Again tomorrow on Thursday morning, 22 September 2011; our boys will be trashing Namibia in a clash for a ticket to demonise Samoa at the end of this month on our way to the quarter finals. The protagonists and the prophets of doom are quite now; leaders of negativity and mediocre minds are mercerising new ideas of attack against our glorious team.
Going forward; we call on all our people to prepare for the up coming national sport and recreation indaba. Everybody can input in the process and outcomes of the sport indaba through our website and their grassroots sports structures like the local sport councils and clubs.
Let us now give our undivided attention to the world cup in New Zealand. Let prepare ourselves for a third victory. Let us prepare for the national sport and recreation indaba.
Forward ever! Backward Never!!
I thank you.
