Programme Director and Chief Whip of the ANC: OR Tambo Municipality, Cllr Nkompela
Members of the Executive Council (MEC’s) present here today
Leadership of the African National Congress both Regional and Local
Members and Leadership of the entire movement
Mayors and Councilors who are present here in this gathering
The Traditional Leadership who are here to grace this event
Members and Leadership of the Council of Churches
Leadership and representatives of SAFA who are here with us today
Lottery Board members and representatives of the Distribution Agency
Community Leaders as well as women and youth leadership in this gathering
Sportsmen and women present here today
Ladies and Gentlemen
Fellow South Africans
Bantu baku-Masipala wase-Mhlontlo neeziphaluka, siyanibulisa ngalenjikalanga.Sinibulisa sinelizwi eliphuma kuRhulumente wombutho wesizwe, u-African National Congress, i-ANC.
Silapha namhlanje sinovuyo olukhulu ngento enisenzeleyona; yokuba nisimeme sibelapha kunye nani, size kulomyadala umkhulu kangaka, kulombhiyozo undiliseke ngoluhlobo.Sithi mazenethole mawethu!
Siyanazi kethina, anithethi kungavelinto.Sithe sova ikhwelo lenu.Saqonda ukuba ikhwelo linetyala apha kwaXhosa, siyabulela mzi wakwaXhosa.
Sithi makudede ubumnyama kuvele ukukhanya.Kube kuhle, kube hele!
Ladies and Gentlemen, it is a great honour and privilege for me to come here and be with you today in this important gathering under the theme “sport skills and youth development” in the Mhlontlo Municipality.
By doing this, we also pay a fitting tribute to the son of the soil, the leader of the African National Congress and the father of our nation, comrade Oliver Reginald Tambo who this District Municipality is named after. We also pay homage to all our martyrs from Tsolo and Qumbu as well as all the surrounding villages under the leadership of the OR Tambo Municipality who fought tirelessly against the brutal apartheid system for a better life for all South Africans.
We remember vividly when these martyrs were in combat in the ‘well-known nine frontier wars of resistance or Xhosa Wars in defence of our heritage. These wars were all fought in defence of the land against the pillaging mobs of colonial armies and our forces were under the command of the great traditional leaders of this part of South Africa, the Eastern Cape against the European forces.
It is here in this part of our country that South Africa produced seasoned cadres and leaders of the African National Congress, the South African Communist Party as well as matured trade unionists.
Without doubt, Eastern Cape is the land of the well nurtured leadership of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) in the likes of Oliver Tambo, Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, Steve Tshwete, Chris Hani as well as Thabo Mbeki and many more.
We want to say, this afternoon, their blood was not in vain, in fact, their blood watered the tree of freedom we enjoy today. We want to say again to all these gallant fighters, their war against apartheid was not a lost war, it was a victorious battle against powerful apartheid colonial machinery. They did so to defend the land of our forefathers whilst at the same time defending their movement, the African National Congress (ANC).
Without fear of contradiction, indeed, the Eastern Cape Province epitomises the cradle of the struggle for freedom and liberty. At the same time this Province is an epitome of sport and recreation in South Africa from cricket, rugby, boxing and etc. What we need to do now is to revive these sporting codes from where they were before. We need to encourage more young people to participate in sport and recreation.
Ladies and Gentlemen, when I was here in 2009 I watched Veterans playing sport in this field.I promised this community and its leaders that I will come back to this village to contribute meaningfully towards the development of sport and recreation. I was not paying any lip service or making empty promises, I am here today to deliver on that promise.
I am doing this because I am convinced that here at Mhlontlo, the people are faced with a plethora of challenges and the ANC led government is charged, together with you, to resolve these challenges.
It is true that Mhlontlo Municipality is overwhelmingly rural with pockets of peri-urban areas with a total number of the households of about 51 000 as compared to the 44 500 in 2008.The majority of these people are said to be unemployed and lack sufficient formal education as a result they fall prey to social exclusion and income inequality. The majority of these socially excluded inhabitants are young people under the age of 35; of which the sizeable number being women.
It is in this regard that Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA) committed itself to help the Municipality to intervene in this situation and develop a programme to push back the ‘frontiers of poverty, underdevelopment and ignorance’. We will begin by encouraging all people of Mhlontlo, especially young people to participate in sport and recreation. We are here, today, to do just that!
We know that by this intervention we will assist this community, through sport and recreation, to deal with all the ills of society including crime and criminality, living healthy lifestyles, fighting against drugs and alcohol abuse, fighting the scourge of teenage pregnancy and HIV/AIDS as well as becoming active in sport and recreation.
I know that this part of the Eastern Cape Province is having many active sports clubs and teams but they lack support and equipment. We are therefore here to support that. We are encouraged by your activism in sport and recreation by involving yourselves in numerous sporting activities in order to develop your sporting skills whilst in the same token contribute meaningful in the development of society. We cannot leave this talent unnoticed!
However, we would like you to establish and strengthen organs of peoples’ power through the establishment strong and strengthening the Local Sports Councils, Schools Sport Codes Structures and any other strategic organ of people’s power to assist to revive and strengthen sport and recreation in our communities.
We want sport veterans and traditional leaders to help us to mobilise communities to show interest in sport. We want them to register to become part of the Sport and Recreation Volunteer Corps to transfer their sporting skills to the youth especially the sporting youth in schools and communities. We want our sporting veterans to register for coaching courses with the SRSA and SASCOC in order to sharpen their coaching and sport skills for the better.
As a start-up programme, today, we will donate different sport equipments and 260 sport attire (kits) to 32 sport clubs in this area. I will together with your leadership distribute all these donations immediately after this speech. We want you to become one of those South Africans who are also respected in the field of Sport both in Africa and the world.
Thus today we are donating the sport equipment and the sport attire. We will, after consultation, come back to this area to build a sports hub right here on this field. We will go back to our head office and consult with relevant stakeholders on the roll-out of the sports hubs across the country. In our observation it will be befitting to construct one sports hub here at Tsolo to be utilised by the entire OR Tambo District communities and Local Municipalities.
We identified the construction of this sports hub or sports multi-purpose centre in this area to accommodate emerging different sporting codes established by young people in this area. In the same token we are informed of the challenges you face regarding to the disqualification of your soccer clubs by SAFA inspectorate due to the poor quality of soccer pitches and other sporting fields in this area.
We know that good soccer teams are forced to be sold to areas with quality standard of pitches in order to play at Vodacom Competitions. We would like to believe by constructing a sport hub on this field will in one way or the other go a long way to assist the different soccer clubs and/or sports codes to be of quality standard as to qualify to compete in the quality and higher tournaments.
It also came to our attention that the challenge of sanitation and water in this part of this province is one of the things that hinder the development of our athletes. Without clean and healthy water and sound sanitation our athletes cannot prosper. Diarrhea and other related diseases caused by dirty and unhealthy sanitation and water is a hindrance to the success of any athlete.
In our discussions with the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs on issues of sport facilities, we would include this matter as a matter of urgency because we believe a healthy standard of living is leading into a healthy lifestyle.
Notwithstanding the poor quality of roads in this area, where our athletes are exposed to unnecessary car accidents when they practice athletics in the mornings and evenings. Our athletes especially school going youth are hit by unsuspecting drivers because of the poor nature and standard of our roads in this area.
The safety of our athletes is high on our agenda. We will also, together with our counter-parts in cabinet, look at possibilities of dealing with dire challenge of road construction and road safety for safer sport and recreation in our country.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the ANC is today charged with a responsibility to “build more united, non-racial, integrated communities and sustainable rural communities. The government you fought and voted for is “improving services for all our people and is seized with a task to broaden access for all”.
The democratic state you fought and voted for is working with all spheres of government and people to build more effective, accountable and clean local government. We say to all of you together with the developmental state, we will continue to strengthen community participation at all levels of our government.
Silivile ikhwelo lenu bantu bakuthi singuRhulumente we ANC, sithe masisabele ngokukhawuleza. Indlebe lityala mzi wakwa Xhosa, sizwe sakowethu!Sisivile iSandi senu!
Enkosi!
Thank you.
