Chairperson;
Members of National Council of Provinces (NCOP);
Permanent delegates to the NCOP;
Distinguished guests;
Ladies and gentlemen;
Sports men and women;
Fellow South Africans;
It is an honour and pleasure for me to present to the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) our first Budget Policy Statement of Sport and Recreation South Africa, immediately after we had a singular honour of presenting our Budget Vote Number 20 to the National Assembly on 13 April 2011. We did so in the presence of sport administrators, coaches and the crown jewel of our country, the players themselves.
Chairperson, allow me to pay tribute to the late Director-General of Sport and Recreation, Mr Venie Pieterson, whose untimely death robbed us of a dedicated, committed and experienced civil servant.
Honourable members, as we said in our budget speech at the National Assembly, “our task is to make a movement, a big movement, above all the unity of our people. We must tear down walls that stand against change, and move mountains in pursuit of our common and shared vision.”
Chairperson, allow us to table the Policy Statement of the Department of Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA), after the successful hosting of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. We pay tribute to the astonishing determination, will-power, resilience and unity of purpose which was demonstrated by our people, united by a common desire to be best.
The phenomenal success of the 2010 FIFA World Cup hosted amidst the vibrancy of Africa, the colour and diversity of South Africa (SA) which gives credence to sport as a tool with the power to inspire and unite people and create happiness. South Africans from all walks of life joined in the celebration of our hosting of the largest event in the world.
It opened a window on South Africa and Africa that made the world see us with fresh eyes for the first time. They found in Africa and South Africa a peaceful people, a working infrastructure, spectacular natural scenery, world class facilities, a vibrant culture, first class accommodation, and a soulful connection with humanity. A celebration of an outstanding African success story!
As we celebrate the successes of the World Cup, we are saddened by the untimely passing on of Wendy Ramokgadi, the creator of famous and renowned South African Diski Dance. We send our heartfelt condolences to his wife and family. May his soul rest in peace!
This year in June, we will be marking the one year anniversary of hosting the most successful World Cup on the African soil by staging a monumental match between Africa Eleven and the 2010 world Cup champions Spain. This week we will be engaging with FIFA in Zurich to finalise the modalities of this integrated event, which will also include arts and culture.
Honourable members, after the successful hosting of the 2010 World Cup, there has been increasing interest in the potential of sport to inward investment and economic regeneration in communities, cities and regions. This is an element of the sport economy which we are refining as we scientifically analyse the real contribution of sport in our gross domestic product.
As part of our conceptual thesis of sport economy, sports is seen not as just games, but more of an economic imperative which contributes to economic growth, industry development, and sustainable livelihood. It has proven abilities, among others, to bind us together as a nation to increase our sports tourism and contribute to peace and development, to increase social and economic values as well as to enhance healthy and fulfilling lives.
Honourable members, on Friday last week in Atteridgeville in Tshwane, we reactivated our Magnificent Fridays with an exhibition game between the SA national netball team and popular personalities from sport and entertainment, as part of the preparation of the World Championship in Singapore.
Ladies and gentlemen, 1 June 2011 marks the 100th days to the Magnificent 2011 International Rugby Board (IRB) World Rugby Cup in New Zealand. We are the defending champions, and we will remain as such come the end of the world cup spectacle.
Let us continue to fly the South African flags high. Let us rally behind all our national teams and wear our favourite jerseys. We did it for the Proteas. Let us do it for Netball team, (amaNtombazana), and the Springboks (amaBhokoBhoko) as they go out to conquer the world.
As an “active and winning nation”, South Africa should celebrate our athletes and sport luminaries who excel in the field of play in South Africa and abroad.
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate top runner Farwa Mentoor of Mitchels Plain who is the first woman to win her 10th Gold Medal in the history of the Comrades Marathon, on Sunday, 29 May 2011.
By the same token, we want to honour and respect Fanie Matshiya for finishing second at the Comrades Marathon.
Let’s also pay homage to the continued success of Caster Semenya for winning the 800 meters in Dakar Grand Prix on Saturday, 28 May 2011. We wish her all the best at the London diamond league as part of the preparation to defend her world championship title.
Let us also salute Sibusiso Sithole of the “Magnificent Sevens” for scoring the match-winning try against Australia during the World IRB Sevens World Series Cup final rugby match at Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh, Scotland on Sunday 29 May 2011.
We warmly acknowledge the success of our surfing team at the junior surfing championship in Peru, South America. South Africa came out second out of 27 countries, losing only to the host. These are the best results ever, beating the arch rivals Australia by 200 points. SA got two individual silver medals for the Under 18 girls and under 16 boys and a bronze for the under 18 boys.
We would also like to wish Bafana Bafana victory in their clash with Egypt in the Africa Cup of Nations Qualifier on Sunday 5 June 2011. We know that you will make us proud.
Ladies and gentlemen, we equally celebrate the strides and our legends in the field of golf, particularly the youthful Charl Schwartel for winning the US Masters, Louis Oosthuizen for winning the Open Championship at the oldest golf at St Andrews in Scotland, and Ernie Else for being inducted into the World Golf Hall of fame.
We wish to further send our condolences to the Wilson family and friends for the passing on of Paul Wilson, the former South African test cricketer who died in Johannesburg on Tuesday morning of 24 May 2011. Famous for his whirlwind innings of 108 in the old Trafford Test during the Springboks’ Tour of England in 1955, a hard-hitting lower middle-order batsman in South Africa.
Chairperson, let us welcome, one of our own, Lonwabo Tsotsobe who is scheduled to return to his motherland at the end of this week. We dare not doubt that Tsotsobe has all what it takes to be the best cricketer and has the skills to succeed. We know for the fact that he is not the first son of the soil to face challenges and difficulties in the foreign soil. Other South African bowlers like Corrie van Zyl, Fannie de Villiers and Dave Steyn also struggled with their first experience in county cricket.
The impressive strong crowd that came out to support our athletes in the Diamond League in Rome last week must be commended. Thank you Louis van Zyl for your continued fine start to the season with a Second Series victory in the 400m hurdles, leading from start to finish and won 47.91 minutes.
We would also like to raise our flags for Mbulaeni Molaudzi for finishing second in the same May to September Diamond League Series in 800m race. Congratulations!
Well done to Sunette Viljoen who bagged sixth position in the Javeline 60.61 meters. Well done!
Ladies and gentlemen, on 18 May 2011, the overwhelming majority of our people reaffirmed their mandate to the African National Congress (ANC) by voting for this glorious movement to continue to administer the vast majority of municipalities in our country.
Simply put, they have also reaffirmed their resolve that the ANC led government continue its programme to provide sport and recreation facilities where our people live and further “create child and family friendly parks in local municipalities which will provide safe spaces for children and their families to engage in sporting activities and general recreation”.
Chairperson, the Commonwealth Heads of Government Working Group in Harare (1995) made the following observation with regard to the influence of sport on society: “it is time that the integral role which sport plays in the process of nation-building is fully recognised. Sport is an investment. It is firstly an investment in the health, vitality and productivity of one’s people. It is secondly an investment in their future.”
In order for SRSA to deliver on its mandate of sport development, and attain its vision for an active and winning nation, sport support systems must be aligned to deliver within an integrated sport development continuum. This begins at school level, where the foundation for participation and competition has to be developed, strengthen and sustained. This will help in talent identification and nurturing at an early stage, and further developed to an elite level using scientific methods.
In the same vein, we will be launching the School Sport before the end of June 2011 after officially signing the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Department of Basic Education. Our fervent goal is to ensure that there is sport in each and every school in South Africa, which will culminate into a National Olympics Championship every year. In this pursuit, all strategic stakeholders are on board, including South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC), Universities and trade unions.
Chairperson, we continue with our resolve to stabilise boxing in South Africa. We will be appointing a new board soon. Equally, we have already appointed Mandla Qithi, as the new CEO of Boxing SA. His first brief is to convene a National Boxing Indaba to chart a way for an integrated vision of boxing in our country. We wish Mr Qithi well in his endeavours.
As part of our journey to transform sport and recreation in our country, the envisaged National Sport and Recreation Indaba will pave a way for a National Sport and Recreation Plan.
This excellence resonate the values and virtues of our renewed vision of SRSA. This fundamental shift in paradigm is anchored in our overarching strategy, our new Road Map for Optimal Performance. The Road Map seeks to reposition our functional efficiencies, accelerate service delivery, enhance organisational excellence, and inject new performance energy.
This Road Map is propelled by the departments’ zeal for common purpose, its zing for optimal excellence and our zip for unity of purpose which pushes everyone forward, and energises the whole organisation to wake up everyday to do more for a better life for all our people.
Chairperson, as you would notice, contrary to ordinary trend, what we presented in the National Assembly (NA) few weeks ago and what we present to this house today is a Budget Policy Statement characterised by shrinkage from a One point two Billion Rands (R1, 255 billion) in 2009/10 to Eight Hundred and Two Million Rands (R802 million) in the 2011/12 financial year. Aggregated, in 2007/08 financial year it stood at R5 billion, and to-date it stands at R802 million an annualised decrease of about forty percent (40%).
These down wards spiral of our financial capacity will undermine the maintenance and sustainability of our legacy left by 2010. Hence, we are working at approaching the National Treasury with a view of increasing our budget baseline and other expenditure programmes.
Chairperson and members of the NCOP, a birds’ view on our budget structure would still reflect absolute resonance with our strategic priorities as already articulated in our Strategic Planning document as presented in March 2011 in the National Assembly, and to the select committee on education and recreation on 25 May 2011.
The national and provincial departments are acutely alive to the imperative of transformation for sport unity, social cohesion, sustenance, and wellbeing of communities. At the same time, we call upon Parliament and the people of
South Africa to join hands with us in our campaign to provide a fresh perspective and impetus on transformation, a perspective that posits equality, unity, access, and excellence at the centre of our national discourse.
The department wants to achieve inclusivity and consensus on what each federation’s and/or club’s contribution is or will be towards the realisation of the objectives of the national goals and priorities. In order to ensure that our actions are focused and directed, the Ministry has started a process of drawing up a transformation charter which will apply to all sports organisations. The charter will be a product of extensive and wide-ranging consultation and robust debates.
This engagement process has started at a micro-level in order to formulate a draft framework and score card, and will be extensively discussed at the provincial and national Izindaba which the Deputy Minister will further elaborate on.
Chairperson, the glaring absence of sport and recreation facilities in our schools and our communities continues to be a matter of concern.
We are working together with the Department of Co-operative Governance to ensure that the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) which reside with their department is rightly repatriated back to our department to ensure seamless co-ordination and unlocking the real value for money of this grants.
Equally, we have also met with the Ministry of Human Settlement to discuss the rationalisation and possible redirection of the Urban Settlement Development Grant (USDG) to Sport and Recreation South Africa. Both departments were tasked with the responsibility of formulating a model that would enhance the provision of sport and recreation facilities in the eight Metropolitan Municipalities. In the short term it will see both departments co-operating in the administration of these funds, with an ultimate aim, in the long run, of having this fund also repatriated back to our department.
Chairperson, we are escalating our campaign to mobilise more resources from the private sector and the international donor community to support our Youth Camps and talent development programmes.
We are sourcing additional funding. It is true that the advancement of sport and recreation development in South Africa does not only rely on public funding but also on various stakeholders, including non-governmental entities and foreign donor funding. Inspired by this reality, SRSA continues to maintain and strengthen its relations with the European Union and German Government.
The department will continue to encourage entities to apply for Lotto funding for other developmental programmes in sport and recreation. We note with concern the manner in which funds are being allocated by the Lotto Distribution agency. We will ensure that through our engagement with the Ministry of Trade and Industry that Lotto Funds are disbursed equitably and directed to the areas of need in order to make an immediate impact in sport and recreation.
Furthermore, the transformation charter should be complete in order to roll-out Institutional Mechanisms projects. This includes facilities, academies, sport councils and coaching. The 2011 budget allocates an additional R205.7 million over the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) period.
The bulk of our budget went to mass participation which includes school sports and community sport. The mass participation condition grants allocation has increased at an annual average rate of 30% between 2007/08, and 2010/11 due to the inclusion of school sport from 2006/07, and 2010 legacy projects from 2007/08.
Of the R502 million allocated to mass participation, R471 million consist of the conditional that is allocated to the provinces to roll out community mass participation programme and the school sport programme.
Ladies and gentlemen, the provinces will attest that this grant has given many of them a life line and constitutes the greater percentage of their budgets.
This programme has served to increase the number of participants in sport and recreation to the most disadvantaged and neglected communities by providing equipment and attire. This has also contributed to skills development and job creation and has been a catalyst for talent edification.
We are hopeful that with this new vigour we will be able to deal with the challenges facing sport and recreation in our country, as well as repositioning the department for optimal performance.
The renewed zing and zest by all 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.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I hereby table the SRSA the Budget Policy Statement to this House.
Thank you.
Enquires:
Paena Galane
Cell: 079 509 9833
Budget Policy Statement of the Minister of Sport and Recreation, Hon. Mr Fikile Mbalula, on the occasion of the sitting of the NCOP Parliament of the Republic of South Africa, Cape Town
