The Deputy Minister; Mr Gert Oosthuizen
The MEC of the Eastern Cape Province; Ms Xoliswa Tom
The MEC for the Free State Province; Dan Kgothule
The Acting: Director-General; Ms Summaya Khan
The President of SASCOC; Mr Gideon Sam
The Chief Executive Officer of SASCOC; Mr Tubby Reddy
The entire Leadership of SASCOC
Representatives of Federations
Ladies and gentlemen of the Media
In her book entitled No normal Sport in an Abnormal Society, Struggle for Non-Racial Sport In South Africa: From Apartheid To Sports Unity Cheryl Roberts writes that “South African sport has over the past years (1950 – 2010 ) traveled an historical journey, characterised by majority injustices, minority privileges, international isolations, banning’s, harassment and eventually the dawn of sports unity and post-apartheid sport and international legitimacy of the non-racial democratic South Africa”.
As delegates at this General Assembly, we need to ask ourselves the stark question as to what extent are we occupying the open space to drive development, transformation and building unity of purpose. To what extent are we knowingly or unknowingly undoing the gains that we have achieved under difficult circumstances?
The South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) leadership will attest to the fact that we have been in consultation with them and have had robust engagement with the leadership and management of SASCOC as early as November 2010. We commenced this relationship with a meeting with the President and the CEO in Cape Town where we received a briefing on the critical issues and challenges to which we are all committed to collectively address in the interest of sport and recreation in a country bedeviled by a superfluity of societal ills.
The Ministry and SASCOC recognised the damage caused by internal squabbles within the federations and acknowledge that this is not our core-business and that these internal wrangles were orchestrated by individuals and barons of factions with absolutely no regard to national pride, transformation and sport development. We stand before you the leadership of SASCOC to remind you to discharge your historical mission for which you were established by condemning this demon that is slowly killing our national pride. We must all do so in our words and deeds.
Your leadership together with a number of representatives from our federations and my colleagues the MECs attended and participated in the Strategic Planning Workshop convened by the Ministry of Sport and Recreation. It is now common knowledge that the Workshop resolved to collectively adopt the Road Map for Optimal Performance and Functional Excellence. The aim of the road map is to unlock the real value and organisational vibrancy in our sector. Wherever South Africans congregate and converse the following strategic priorities should underscore and dictate the outcome of your conversations:
Transformation
School Sport
Institutional Mechanisms
Mass Mobilisation
Recreation
Funding (being the cross-cutting factor for success)
We are delighted to announce to all gathered here today that SASCOC has accepted the challenge of aligning its business plans with these strategic priorities. Our engagement with the SASCOC leadership is dynamic and continuous as demonstrated by a meeting held on the 27 January 2011 which assumed the form of a workshop at which we outlined our Road Map and your leadership in turn presented us with a detailed but directed response and plan of action.
Given the realisation that our objectives where mutually related and connected we resolved to call a joint press conference with SASCOC and released a joint press statement informing all involved in the business of sport and recreation and the nation of our intent. For this reason we can unashamedly and boldly state that there is general consensus and a common agenda of what needs to be done.
There are joint committees and subcommittees comprising of officials from the Department of Sport and Recreation and SASCOC to develop delivery mechanisms and drive outcomes from the strategic priorities. There must be no excuses about lack of direction or lack of clarity. If there is anyone who needs direction or clarity, you know where I live! Or at least you know how to contact me!
Simultaneously with our meeting with SASCOC we have met with a number of Federations to obtain first-hand information on your future plans and direction. We are planning to meet the remaining Federations in the coming months bearing in mind that we have local government elections on the 18 th May 2011. Thereafter we will be having more closer and regular engagements to drive the matters on our agenda to their logical conclusion. Let us all run the Marathon! Your plans are our plans and we are here to provide direction and leadership.
We have just presented our Budget Vote to Parliament which as you know received overwhelming support from all the parties in Parliament. Thank you to all those of you who attended and supported our presentation to Parliament. There will never be sufficient funds for us to fulfill our mandate due to competing priorities and the legacy of apartheid that our government and people have to undo. As they say, we have to make do with what we have! We have got to cut our jacket according to our cloth.
The matter is further compounded by the global financial crisis our country and other countries the world over find themselves. This does not mean that the fight for more resources has been put on the back banner. We will continue, as we do, fighting for more resources as we make the case for sport at all levels and platforms available to us so that we have the tools to achieve on our stated objectives.
We are aware that the Department of Sport and Recreation has provided SASCOC with a detailed budget allocation outlining the share of the budget which each Federation will receive. We will not go into figures just to mention that the amount allocated to Netball (Amantombazana) appears like a drop of water in the ocean as Netball is battling, like other small codes to attract sponsors and donations.
We must all devise means to support the small and smaller codes.On the other hand the allocations made to the Federations to increase the participation of women and disabled persons must be utilised for that purpose and we will ask for empirical evidence on how the funds are utilised. We need quarterly reports on the expenditure and performance trends and patterns starting from this month.
We have given you the marching orders, now we want to see results. Not tomorrow! Today!
We must now get concrete plans and results on all the areas we have identified as requiring our undivided attention and immediate action:
We want you to deliberate and agree on your plans for the launch of our school sport programme. There are many sporting codes as you know. Which sporting codes are we prioritising? What is the rationale for choosing one sporting code over the other? Also and most importantly how are we going to package our school sport plan programme so that we do not cause disruptions in the teaching and learning enterprise.
We have collectively agreed to launch and relaunch the Provincial Sport Councils where they are non-existent. Where and what is the roll-out plan? Have we clearly defined the roles and responsibilities of these organs?
Delegates to this meeting should also be seized with the matter of the Academies in areas such as talent building and nurturing, coaching the coaches, training the trainers, reviving community clubs and other related issues. What are the provincial dynamics and contributions?
In his last Speech Budget Policy Statement my predecessor Doctor Reverend Arnold Makhenkesi Stofile in May 2011 posed the question whether the National Lottery in its current form is assisting meaningfully to achieve National Strategic Objectives. We put the same question to you the federations?We will take your views on board in our ongoing engagements with the Department of Trade and Industry.
The SASCOC President and I committed to build a multi-purpose boxing centre just here in the back yard of East London, in Mdantsane, the Mecca of boxing. This is part of our plans to revive boxing in the Eastern Cape and later in the whole country. We need clear time-frames on the delivery of this facility.
The South African Rugby Union have a brilliant plan to revive and promote rugby as a code of choice in the Eastern Cape, starting with Border and the former Eastern Cape, moving to other regions. To us the most important question is when and where do we start.
We are not seeing enough young African players coming through the regional to the Provincial squads and being selected on merit. Not quota system to be part of our National Team the Springboks.
We are failing to produce competitive youngsters to participate in the Olympics. The people who are charged with the responsibility of ensuring that we have these athletes have long abandoned them. They are setting up disciplinary hearings whilst others are challenging the same disciplinary hearings.
Boxing is in the doll-drums and those charged with the responsibility of reviving it and producing more Happy Boy Mgxaji’s and Mzonke Fanas have resorted to a different style and form of boxing in a different ring. Fighting in the boardroom, throwing punches at each other in the media.
We must be reminded that there are bidding and hosting regulations for major events. The processes, procedures and requirements are very clear in this document. The Bidding and Hosting process continues to be a painful point and already we are getting the sense that SASCOC is not in full control of the Federations and SASCOC is not succeeding to enforce compliance. Delegates must deliberate on this matter and provide us with answers so that we as Government can assure Cabinet that we have procedures and systems in place to avoid the last minute rush and attendant embarrassment where Government must be a crisis saver.
We want the people of South Africa to know the percentage of the total budget Federations spend on court cases as opposed to sport development and transformation. Also the time spent on conflict resolution, preparing for court cases and time spent in court. We are raising these issues not for grandstanding purposes or because we choose to be pedantic. These issues are raised because of the negative tendencies and disturbing trends we have observed unfolding in our codes. We have a responsibility to protect our national codes.
If in the middle of a World Championship you have the whole leadership of a sport code participating in a Championship not attending the National Team Games because they have to be in court, and sending the entire National Team to the Championship without the leadership, then we have problem. A Federation preparing for participation in a world Championship in, just under a week, refuses to set aside their leadership squabbles and focus on the championship. So help us GOD!
We are almost getting to a point of saying that those who want to fight for whatever reason, if you cannot overcome the fighting streak, continue fighting, but do not invite us because we are not interested in your pseudo gymnastics. Our fight was against apartheid and we defeated the apartheid regime. Our fight now is against under-development and resistance to transformation. As sure as the sun will rise tomorrow – we will win this battle with support from the very same people and youth they continuously undermine and denigrate through their selfish utterances and deeds.
We have been invited and informed by the South African Football Associationthat seven countries (i.e. Cameroon, Egypt, Gambia, Ghana Lesotho, Mali, Nigeria,will be descending on our shores to participate in the under-20 Confederation of African Football (CAF) Orange Youth Championship. The opening match of the CAF Orange Youth Championships will take place 14h00 on Sunday 17 th of April 2011 at Dobsonville Stadium. The SAFA President is present here at this general assembly and will certainly provide more details to the delegates on the circumstances that led to the Games being moved to South Africa.
The National Netball Team (Amantombazana) have already launched the national Netball T-shirts at a function, I was unfortunately unable to attend due to the fact that on the day of the Launch we had just arrived from International travel. The former Minister of Sport and Recreation South Africa who is now the South African Ambassador to Germany and the Deputy Minister, we believe attended the event in Johannesburg. However, it is our intention to have a follow up discussion with Netball SA with a view to ensure proper preparations for the Netball World Championship in Singapore in July.
We will in this context also heighten awareness about the Teams tour to Singapore and galvanise popular support, rallying the entire nation behind the Team before the World Championship in the spirit of our Magnificent Fridays Campaigns. We must not lose hope. We must support the Team in the same way we supported the Proteas until they succumbed under pressure in the Quarter finals in Bangladesh. We salute the Proteas for their gallant fight and patriotism. As indicated we will meet with the leadership of Cricket South Africa and SASCOC to carry out a thorough assessment of our preparations and performance in this and previous Cricket International Championship.
We will continue working with the Mighty Springboks in the preparations to defend the Ellis Web Cup in the International Rugby Union World Championship in New Zealand in September 2011. We have been working on an interesting concept such as Ekhaya and Unite 2011 which will be aligned to our Magnificent Friday Campaigns. The President of the South African Rugby Board is also suggesting a concept of boksdag, maybe we should try boksdag also! Haak Vrystaat, die Transvaal is ver!
We are also interested to get a sense of the state of preparedness for the All Africa Games in September 2011 in Mozambique.
We must support Banyanabanyana (the National Women’s’ Football Team) in their campaign to qualify for the Olympic Games in London 2012.
In partnership with SASCOC and the SABC we are carrying our mandate to revive and relaunch the Sport and Recreation Awards this year. We are looking forward to your inputs and ideas on how we can rejuvenate local, provincial events culminating in a national event.
We have requested the office to provide you with our most recent documents for purposes of sharing information and deepening the discourse. We do so mindful of the fact that you have been in the sector and also our predecessor must have covered some ground before we took on the responsibility of sport and recreation. Your constructive criticism and frank talk will be most welcome as we do not wish to re-invent the will.
The IOC 123 rd Session in Durban in July need our urgent attention! We know that you have been seized with this matter but we need to escalate our preparations and ensure that the key stakeholders are satisfied with our operational planning and detail. The Acting: Director-General will brief you on the improvements we want to introduce to ensure that the Cabinet Inter-Ministerial Committee delivers a successful event.
The Deputy Minister will address you on our preparations for planned Provincial and National Iindaba.
We wish you fruitful deliberations.
Siyabulela!
Thank You!
Baie Dankie!
Speech by Mr Fikile Mbalula, MP, Minister of Sport and Recreation SA, on the occasion of SASCOC General Assembly meeting: 16th April 2011, Regent Hotel East London
