The FIFA World Cup, the greatest sporting event on earth, is an occasion that for most of humanity will never be experienced more than once.
Befitting though it was that the legacy of Nelson Mandela be saluted by granting South Africa the distinguished honour to host the tournament, many across the globe, and sadly in our country as well, had reservations about our capacity to rise to the occasion.
But we, as the government of KwaZulu-Natal, inspired as we were by the privilege afforded us to lead during this hour of glory for our land, did not once doubt that our hosting of the world cup would be a spectacular success.
From the onset, we understood that the tournament would present our beautiful province with marketing opportunities and exposure to the international community that could only be the envy of the rest of the world.
We took a conscious decision to seize the moment by planning a programme to host, as guests of the government of KwaZulu-Natal, clearly identified key stakeholders who would add immense value to the growth and development of our province.
The plan involved inviting a broad cross-section of leadership of our people, across all sectors, to join us to play host as we welcomed to our shores the diverse peoples of the world.
It was with great enthusiasm that our initiative was greeted by the religious, the political, the business, the traditional, the entertainment and the media fraternity in KwaZulu-Natal. Leaders of all political parties in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature were briefed by the premier and they indicated their appreciation of the marketing effort.
We mobilised under the theme: "KwaZulu-Natal, taking South Africa forward" to signify that as a province we were ready to contribute our share to make our country the great place that the whole world today acknowledges it to be following the successful hosting of the world cup. The support for the KwaZulu-Natal marketing plan was appreciated by the majority of the 56 ambassadors and high commissioners who attended the event.
Our plan entailed a visit to Pretoria to share our vision with the diplomatic community over dinner with ambassadors. We invited them to identify influential stakeholders from their respective countries who would be visiting South Africa during the world cup.
These we, in turn, asked to join us during the events we hosted in our province during the tournament. Among them were business people, chief executive officers, chairpersons of boards, political leaders and others from abroad who would promote the province.
Our hosting consisted of initiatives to showcase the diverse cultures of KwaZulu-Natal, our hospitality and our appeal as an investment and tourism destination.
As a province, through this initiative, we got exposure across the globe as the thousands of journalists who were in the country for the football marveled at the rich heritage of our province.
Ordinary people from KwaZulu-Natal, irrespective of political, cultural or religious differences joined hands to welcome our visitors in true African style. In an unprecedented window of opportunity, we were able to expose and market our province.
Our sense was that our guests left with a positive feeling about our province. In the words of one journalist, we actually turned the 2010 World Cup into an international investment conference.
We are now finalising programmes to follow up on the contacts and initiatives we started. We embarked on this initiative fully mindful of our commitment as this Government to fiscal discipline and prudent utilisation of our limited financial resources.
We received an advisory from National Treasury regarding the buying of world cup tickets willy-nilly. It said: "In view of the requirements of the law, please be advised that any diversion of funds towards the purchase of world cup tickets and memorabilia will be considered as unauthorised and irregular expenditure.
"Heads of departments who initiate such expenditure will thus be in violation of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA), will be liable for a recovery of the relevant funds, and will have committed an act of financial misconduct in terms of section 81 of the act".
Our government discussed and endorsed the letter. We then instructed all our provincial departments and municipalities not to purchase any tickets because we had developed a hosting plan.
We are making available to the media an extract from a policy document endorsed by Cabinet for this purpose. It spells out how we sought to use the world cup as a strategic platform to market the Province internationally as an investment and tourism destination.
From the budget we had already allocated funds for 2010 World Cup activities and the legislature approved our budget. Therefore NO diversion of funds has occurred. In total we spent R8 452 384 to buy 550 tickets that were distributed to various stakeholders that assisted as hosts during the programme.
In addition, we bought 1 430 stand tickets which were made available for purchase by various stakeholders when it became apparent that some tickets would no longer be needed in our hosting plan. These costs will be recovered from those who took advantage of the offer.
Except for opening and closing matches, no MEC personally received tickets as they utilised tickets allocated by the Local Organising Committee (LOC). All the members of the provincial legislature (MPLs) and public servants who were assigned hosting tasks were allocated on a roster, not out of choice.
We are satisfied that the provincial policy satisfied the provisions of the Ministerial Handbook, the Treasury letter and that KwaZulu-Natal got value for money. All documents have been submitted for full audit by the Auditor-General's office.
Over and above the hosting programme, all our districts hosted public viewing areas. The total attendance was 435 734. We wish to add that 824 small, medium and micro-enterprises (SMMEs) benefited, as well as 792 service providers. We engaged the services of 1 414 provincial artists, thus ensuring that the legacy of the world cup went beyond the sporting arena. In the end, we are satisfied that this was money well spent.
It was a joint effort by the various sectors of our community, and we want to thank each and every person who contributed in the hosting of our guests, including the media fraternity.
Our guests were particularly moved by the gesture of some of our mainstream newspapers whose editors took the bold decision to publish in foreign languages on match days. We want to thank the editors who joined us during the hosting programme and made our visitors feel welcome.
We want to thank those MPLs who not only helped us network with our guests, but also actively went out of their way to lend a hand to a stranger beyond the call of their ordinary duties.
To everyone who laid a brick to build the infrastructure, to those whose lovely smiles made our visitors feel at home, and to each and everyone involved in organising the world’s greatest spectacle, we thank you.
We are grateful to the millions of our people who kept the spirit of being South African strong as they waved their flags and filled the fan parks.
We thank our people for the kind of behavior that ensured that we had an incident-free tournament that left our guests with great memories of KwaZulu-Natal.
After all is said and done, we are convinced that in our humble way, the people of KwaZulu-Natal have contributed in taking South Africa forward.
Siyabonga!
Enquiries:
Ndabezinhle Sibiya
Cell: 082 3754742
Regi Khumalo
Cell: 079 751 6108
