Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee
Honourable Members
I wish to extend my gratitude for this opportunity to give a strategic perspective and detail on the Strategic Plan 2011 to 2015 of the Department of Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA). The strategic plan is one of our planning tools which provide a macro-strategic imperative on how we seek to benchmark our programmes in order to attain sustainable organisational excellence.
The strategic plan is predicated on our new vision, our new Road Map for Optimal Performance and Functional Excellence. This road map is an integrated and wholesale strategy to reposition the department, and engender functional efficiencies and accelerated service delivery. It is a compendium to transform the department into an agile, athletic and responsive institutional architecture. It epitomises a new paradigm, a new energy of a vibrant epoch in managing Sport and Recreation South Africa to confront complex set of challenges with much vigour, vibe and vitality.
The strategic plan gives concrete credence to the six areas of the road map, namely, (1) accelerating transformation; (2) rekindling and revitalisation of schools sport; (3) remodeling the institutional architecture of the department; (4) fostering mass participation; (5) reinvigorating the recreation cohort; and (6) mobilising sufficient funds and funding for optimal programme execution.
We are hopeful that with this new vigour we will be able to deal with the tripartite challenge afflicting the department which is (1) lack of an integrated long-term cognitive horizon based on practical time bound benchmarks, (2) the lack of an integrated programme focus, particular on recreation and; (3) the lack of sufficient skills formation and capacity at senior level coupled with the lack of adequate financial and funding resources.
By the same token, this strategic plan focuses on unlocking the real value of the department’s mandate, that of occupying the centre stage, both in policy and practical programmatic implements to ensure that many South Africans as possible have access to sport and recreation activities, particularly those from disadvantaged communities. Concurrently, the department will sharpen its resolve to support the increase in international sport successes by strengthening performances at all levels of participation.
This year we will be hosting a national sports indaba, a sport sector forum that will provide an elaborate frame for the national sports plan to guide South African sport. This Indaba will also emerge with architecture for a Transformation Charter, to assist in a sustained and integrated transformation framework. Equally, various policies and legislative mechanisms will be overhauled during this incumbent period.
However, all the above strategic programmes will not be realised unless sufficient resources are made available. The department will do everything possible to secure additional financial resources, but, in the main, the baseline allocation from National Treasury will have to be increased.
Sport is not only about play-offs and gaming. It is in the main about real economic growth and development. Many sporting events have demonstrated the power and magnitude of what can be called “sport economy” can do in improving lives, foster economic integration, amplifying entrepreneurship development and sustainable livelihood. Sport is an economy. Its contribution to our Gross Domestic Product as a country is extensive and extraordinary, and continues to grow.
Sport as an economy equally propels prolific social cohesion, nation building and bridging of eccentricities, be it gender or geography; race or religion; or status or strata. Hence, its programmes have to be transformative, developmental and actions-based not only to create a better life for all, but also to delivering quality athletes who are able to participate and compete at highest levels.
School sport remains a bedrock for talent identification and nurturing, and more importantly, mass participation in sport. In this regard, the department we are finalising our memorandum of agreement with the Department of Basic Education to make schools sport participation and development an integral part of a total scholarshipp.
Similarly, youth camps are our strategic anchor to social cohesion in order to ensure that young people work cooperatively 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. Youth camps will ensure that young people are kept active, interested in life with increased self-esteem, promote patriotism, sense of citizenship as well as nationhood.
Indeed, to achieve these epic objectives demands that as Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA) we work together in consort will all our stakeholders, including, Parliament, South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (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 this strategic plan and other epic policy documents will reap benefits for sport and recreation and the nation as a whole. 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 strategic plan for 2011 to 2015 is a continuation tool to execute our department’s mandate to create possibilities to enable many South Africans of varied backgrounds and disciplines to have access to sport and recreation. In particular, our biasness will surely go to the marginalised communities. These are the fundamental characteristics of our developmental state which seeks to construct a national democratic society where everyone is fully absorbed into all walks of life, and functions as a productive citizenry.
We are under no illusion about the daunting challenges that lie ahead, but we will deal with them with greater agility, vim and vigilance. We remain confident that this Portfolio Committee will walk with shoulder to shoulder in what Henry A. Wallace calls a “journey of certainty”.
I thank you!
