Honourable Speaker,
Honourable Premier,
Honourable Members of the Provincial Legislature of the North West Province
Honourable Members of Parliament
Leaders of political parties
Executive mayors, mayors, speakers and councillors
Magosi a rona a a tlotlegang
Commissioners
Chairpersons and representatives of our public entities
Business community, sports ambassadors, artists
Cultural activists and experts in various fields
Comrades and distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
I greet you all in the name of ‘together we can do more to fight poverty and build a better life for all’.
We are here today to reflect on our achievements, challenges and plans with a view to continuing on our mandate to better the lives of our people through our programmes and activities. We acknowledge with all humility and heartfelt gratitude those who came before us, especially honourable Ndleleni Duma, who started the race and their vision individually and collectively will remain a foundation that shall solidify the objectives and purpose of our department.
Even with a challenging budget that must be perceived in the light of the global recession, the department will not shy away from its responsibilities of development and promotion of the sectors of sport, arts and culture. We shall continue to nurture these programmes as we embrace the national priorities of social cohesion, nation building, poverty eradication, job creation, crime prevention, good governance, mass literacy campaigns as well as mass participation.
In a very significant way our sector contributes to the moral regeneration theme. We are also conscious of the fact that our rural development strategy should be strengthened with a view to empowering our people from previously disadvantaged areas (PDA). We shall engage with the business and private sectors to build partnerships that should assist us in the development of our communities. We need a buy-in from them to provide the much needed sponsorships and donations.
Honourable speaker, contribution towards economic empowerment and poverty eradication remain key commitments. We implement this, by staging big events for tourism, economic development and mass mobilisation such as the International Boxing Tournaments, Telkom Charity Cup, Premier Soccer League games and Zone VI under 20 Youth Games of Southern African Development Community (SADC). It was very important to host these events as a form of displaying the capacity of the province to attract big events but in addition it creates job opportunities for many of our citizens.
The social impulse of many of our people who live in poverty or on low wages is more than the search to find meaning within the tedious, often boring labour they are forced to perform to survive. It is a struggle for self respect in the face of poverty. It is an effort to create a better life for themselves and future generations.
As Amilcar Cabral said and I quote, “people are not fighting for ideas, for things in anyone’s head. They are fighting to win material benefits, to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee the future of their children”.
Honourable speaker, we need to put on record that we visited each district of the province and consulted with political structures, traditional leadership, and staff members of the department in a quest to understand stakeholders of the department and assess the state of sport, arts, library and culture in our districts. Secondly, we needed to ensure that we are on par with our people in relation to government policy. We noted issues that would inform the strategic plan and ensure the alignment of the department’s vision, mission and strategic goals in line with our people’s wish to improve their lives.
The outcome of the consultation sessions across the four districts have provided us with a list of challenges ranging from, lack of sport, library, arts and culture facilities, shortage of equipment, inadequate skills in personnel, and the capacity to deliver adequately on the mandate of the Department. A list of proposals to address such challenges was also generated during these consultative sessions. These contributions should be incorporated into the strategic plan of the department after the strategic planning session that was held with stakeholders and key role players on 30 June to 1 July 2009.
We sincerely thank all executive mayors, mayors, dikgosi, the business sector, religious leaders, youth structures, sporting and cultural fraternity and everyone including officials who made inputs to the consultative sessions. We further call upon all stakeholders to commit to a collective effort towards service delivery that focuses on improving the quality of lives of our people. We have interacted with the portfolio committee members and have taken note of their concerns. The department will engage with various stakeholders to device strategies in order to deal with these concerns adequately.
The department has four programmes:
* Management and Administration;
* Cultural Affairs;
* Libraries, Archives and
* Sport and Recreation.
We shall now discuss each of these programmes in detail.
Management and Administration
In relation to management and administration, the department ensures good governance and enhancement of service delivery by implementing performance management and development system. This instrument assists in monitoring staff performance within the public service. We are required by the Public Service Act to assess the performance of employees. It is the business of this department to ensure that everyone is properly assessed.
Most members of the senior management services in the department continue to attend capacity building courses such as Khaedu training and others. We are all too conscious of the gaps that we have to fill in empowering our personnel, i.e. middle managers and other staff members.
In order to intensify the skills development for both the employed and unemployed, we have successfully implemented learnerships during the previous financial year such as Sport and Fitness Learnership national qualification level five (NQF level 5) for 25 unemployed and fifteen 15 employed learners as well as Sport Turf Maintenance (NQF level 2) for 20 unemployed young people. We secured funding from Theta for the placement of 20 graduates on internship programmes for information technology, finance, museums and heritage.
For this current financial year we intend to intensify our learnership and internship programmes for unemployed learners in tour guiding, arts and culture production and performing arts. The previously disadvantaged individuals (PDI’s) youth, women and people with disabilities have been targeted through learnership and internship programmes. Alongside these programmes, the Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) programme will continue to curb illiteracy amongst our staff and in the community through our literacy service. The department has developed a bursary policy that should assist in the development of our personnel. This links with our overall workplace skills plan to empower our personnel.
Through our relationship with India, the department managed to send five officials responsible for HIV/AIDS training in order to enhance their capacity to effectively manage HIV/AIDS in the work place. On the other hand, the department ran drama plays aimed at raising awareness about the HIV/AIDS pandemic among various communities through partnership with artists. The experience gained has enriched their knowledge of managing HIV/AIDS at the workplace.
Our employment equity plan has been aligned with government policy on issues of gender and equity. Our labour relations unit is ensuring the implementation of sound labour relation practices in the department. Furthermore, the department has implemented a fraud prevention policy and risk assessment workshops were conducted for middle and senior managers. We are currently observing the impact of the policies on our personnel with a view to attain effective service delivery.
We have an all inclusive programme to cater for visually impaired and various stakeholders. Through these efforts already, 20 visually impaired people attended training at the South African Council for the Blind. 10 community libraries were targeted as pilot projects and were equipped to be utilised by people with disabilities. The department will train 20 library officials, both from the department and Municipality, in sign language.
Cultural Affairs
In relation to cultural affairs, honourable speaker, in our last budget vote we promised the people of this province that a publishing house to benefit our artists would be established. We are happy to report that a pilot phase for this project has been completed with the publishing of eight Setswana literature books. We are proud to say that these books have been authored by young writers and will be distributed in our community libraries. This year, 11 new Setswana titles will be published, and among these eight are authored by women.
The cultural industries growth strategy has great potential for the craft, music, film, publishing and design industries. The department has established a Craft Design Institute (CDI) under Mmabana Arts, Culture and Sport Foundation (MACSF) to ensure that our people shall benefit and sustain themselves. This will enable our crafters to enter the international arena. It will broaden their foreign capacity as we receive visitors in 2010. It is of outmost importance that acknowledgement is made of the co-funding of CDI project by the Department of Trade and Industry. In this programme the department has established 60 small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) in craft, leather, paper, grass and beads businesses. These projects have created at least 200 jobs and in this financial year we will support another 21 businesses.
We work with different stakeholders to support various festivals in our province that include the North West Film Festival, North West Cultural Calabash, Zindala Zombili, music festivals, theatre productions and various other activities to support artists. We will further support artists to participate and showcase their talent in provincial, national and international festivals such as the Grahamstown National Festival, Macufe, Aardklop and others. Our artists are beginning to reap benefits from other sectors such as the South African Traditional Music Achievement Awards (SATMA). We further have Ubuntu Awards to look forward to.
The creative industries in the performing arts sector is recognised way beyond our borders. Through national and international programmes such as the South African Traditional Music Awards (SATMA) and the African Cultural Music and Dance Association (ACUMDA) our groups are able to share expertise with other regions and countries. It is our mission not only to expose these groups but to develop them further.
We will continue to develop monitoring and evaluation tools for the evolution of our provincial festivals. The previously disadvantaged people of our country still suffer from the painful legacies of our past history, more significantly the rural populace. The gaps and challenges are still conspicuously recognisable in infrastructure, particularly arts and culture infrastructure. We still pride ourselves with artists who graduated from backyards and garages because they had no space to work from. We are in the process of creating a workable framework that will inform the process of creating the infrastructure of arts and culture institutions in our province.
There should be within easy reach of all our people community arts centres which should serve as the elementary level of tuition of the arts, this shall include recording studios. We however acknowledge that certain community arts centres have to be upgraded. We are also putting in place a maintenance plan that we hope to agree on with municipalities.
The department partnered with the Department of Correctional Services to stage the National Correctional Offenders Choral Festival at the Mmabatho Convention Centre last year.
The department has four public entities. These are Mmabana Arts, Culture and Sports Foundation and the North West Arts and Culture Council (PACC), Provincial Geographic Names Council (PGNC) and the Provincial Heritage Resources Agency (PHRA). Mmabana is the implementing arm of the department while the PACC funded many projects and gave bursaries to various students in the arts and culture field. The PGNC continues to address the naming process in which our people participate. The PHRA on the other hand is attached to our heritage sector. A workable partnership with the Department of Education will ensure a fuller development of our arts and culture programmes and artists and crafters. Properly guided this could begin at grade R. A transformation strategy for sport, arts and culture will be required to attain that goal.
Mmabana as discussed at the Portfolio Committee meeting is funded exclusively from the provincial fiscus. However the State Theatre in Tshwane, Performing Arts Council of the Free State, Cape Performing Arts Council, Market Theatre, Windybrow, Durban Playhouse and other institutions are funded by the national department. This is an injustice that we need to resolve in our favour.
We are winning the war of raising the awareness among our people of the need to have museums in their communities. To that effect the Kraaipan museum, Mogwase and Maubane Cultural Villages, Seolong Museum and Setlhwatlhwe Heritage Site will be completed in this year. The museum, heritage and language services supported the Provincial Geographical Names Committee, the Provincial Heritage Resource Agency and various language initiatives such as the Setswana dictionary and publishing books in indigenous languages.
The Gateway to Freedom History Legacy project will give recognition to all patriots who assisted in the liberation struggle and who used Botswana as a route to their own freedom from apartheid and used the same route to free their country from that heinous system. The project will give recognition of the contribution to the people of Botswana and the government thereof.
We held a successful Heritage Indaba last year. The Indaba started with district consultative processes which culminated in the identification of some heritage sites across the province. This will not only assist in creating a unique identity for the province but also help in economic development through stimulating tourism. The end product of the entire process will lead to finalisation of heritage policies for the province.
The department plays a crucial role in supporting and celebrating our key public holidays e.g. Human Rights Day, Freedom Day, Youth Day, Women’s Day, Heritage Day and Reconciliation Day. We intend to celebrate Madiba’s contribution to our liberation by supporting 18 July being made Mandela Day. We intend to have some activities in line with our president’s speech which encouraged all of us to celebrate Madiba’s life and achievements. We must all do 67 minutes of service to mankind. We must encourage all our civil servants and honourable members to do community service on 18 July.
Honourable speaker and members, we have entered into an agreement with municipalities to make an audit on all arts and culture needs. This will enable us to coordinate our programmes and align them to specific needs in the communities.
Sport and Recreation
In relation to our promises during our last vote with regard to sport and recreation in this province, we are pleased to inform this august house that the department in partnership with national federations and the Department of Education supported: disabled sport, winter games, summer games and, Vodacom leagues.
Over and above these disability games, the department is on a continuous basis supporting the 12 priority codes as well as the six non priority codes in respect of funding.
We are once again reporting to this house that, the department through the conditional grant has been able to support developing clubs within the province, as well as payment of stipend to community development officers (CDOs). The CDOs assist the department in the implementation of sport and recreation programmes in 21 municipalities. We are in the process to review the appointments of our CDOs in order to improve their conditions of service. These clubs received attires and equipment, which enable them to participate effectively in their different codes. It is our responsibility together with the local municipalities to ensure that facilities are accessible to allow these clubs to participate in various leagues.
We need to ensure the implementation of transformation plans and transparency at the High Performance Academy. sport councils however, must forge a synergy with the province to ensure harmonious implementation of programmes. Our meetings with municipalities yielded fruits within which we will be working from. It is our intention to ensure that sport is professionally governed in this province in order to achieve the national mandate. We will inform this august house in the near future with regard to progress made in this venture.
Modula setulo, sustainable development and promotion of sport and recreation for our disadvantaged communities are key to the department’s mandate. Recreation and mass participation activities and structures as well as creating opportunities to communities across the age spectra continue to exist at the local level and institutions. Some of these projects include, Senior Active Oldies, indigenous games, Recreation Rehabilitation programme, Junior Dipapadi, Toddlers in Action, youth intervention, celebration of commemorative days, outdoor recreation to mention but a few.
Through indigenous games; cultural practices of various groups in the province reinforce community values, customs, as well as symbolise the beauty of our cultural diversity. Games such as diketo, kgati and jukskei enable our children to link up with their heritage. The North West Province is the reigning champion of indigenous games in the country for the fourth time in a row. During the past financial year the province took athletes and officials to Busan, World Traditional Games, Korea, China, and Hong Kong to share sport, arts and cultural experiences with 101 countries in the World. These trips enable better understanding between our people and people of the world.
We further want to affirm that our relationship with the Department of Education in our province with respect to school sport is in good standing. Based on the national school sport grant the department was able to support summer games, winter games as well as cross country games. This year, we will continue to support these games in order to give our able learners and learners with special education needs an opportunity to demonstrate and participate at local, provincial, national and international championships.
Honourable speaker, it is clear that people who are active in sport and recreation will reduce the cost of health care in the country as a fit person generally has fewer illnesses than an unfit person.
This department as the honourable speaker is aware, has four recreation centres:
* Klein Marico
* Donkervliet
* Akasia and
* Rustenburg Cultural Centre.
We are in the process of improving the centres so that they can be used by communities but also in preparation for 2010. We will have a challenge as our budget is limited.
2010 FIFA World Cup
Honourable speaker, we need to be reminded of the president’s state of the nation address, when he said: “One of the biggest infrastructure investment projects is in the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup. We have, as government and the nation at large, pledged that the World Cup will leave a proud legacy from which our children and our communities will benefit for many years to come”.
Honourable speaker, we are still bouncing with excitement from the successful Confederations’ Cup as we anticipate the final prize, the 2010 World Cup. Indeed ‘Ke Nako’, the world will finally celebrate Africa’s humanity. May we thank the host city, people of this province and the country in the excellent work of hosting a successful event of that magnitude. You ALL did the country and Africa proud! Indeed the country is ready to manage the influx of people in 2010 and this will be matched by the enthusiastic support and passion that our people displayed.
We were able during the 2009 Confederations Cup to put to test our safety and security plan, health plan, public viewing areas in most parts of the province, volunteer programme and the most talked about park and ride system. Yes, we fared well in most of these areas and we are the first to acknowledge that a lot of work lies ahead of us if we are to host a seamless and unforgettable 2010 FIFA World Cup on the African continent.
Honourable speaker, having alluded to some of the challenges experienced during the 2009 Confederations Cup, it is our belief that some of the new innovations that FIFA must do is to implement during our domestic football programme so that our football communities can be accustomed to issues such as seating according to ticket numbers at the stadium, getting used to park and rides which will improve arrival times for spectators at the matches, well trained volunteers and early buying of tickets.
It is therefore imperative honourable speaker that we as a province, Rustenburg host city, Royal Bafokeng administration, various work streams, non hosting district municipalities, identified stakeholders, in collaboration with the 2010 Local Organising Committee (LOC), host a 2010 summit that will assist us in taking stock of our achievements, challenges and broadly lessons learned during the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup. We still have to measure the impact of the Confederations’ Cup on the sporting communities.
This will provide us with the opportunity to chart a way forward in focussing on what we need to implement that will make the hosting of 2010 FIFA World Cup a memorable experience for all involved. We are confident honourable speaker that the entire road infrastructure in Rustenburg, ring-roads around the stadium, health facilities, identified training venues and infrastructure for fan park will be ready by the time we host the 2010 FIFA World Cup in 11 June 2010.
The provincial government reiterates its support to Rustenburg host city and Royal Bafokeng administration in ensuring that they meet all the commitments they signed on the FIFA/2010 LOC agreements. We will also work closely with the non hosting 2010 district committees in order to spread the benefits of hosting these FIFA mega events. The volunteer coordinating team will facilitate the availability of modem to provide access by communities in all municipalities to apply for volunteer programme of the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
The province and Rustenburg host city have also hosted the 2010 World Cup announcement anniversary on 15 May 2008 at Sun City and it is our intention to continue putting the province and host city on the map through the hosting of major events, hence we are proud that FIFA and 2010 Organising Committee have afforded us the opportunity to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup teams workshop and medical workshop in February 2010.
Honourable speaker, these are the two major FIFA events that will bring together all the nations that will be participating in the 2010 FIFA World Cup before the kick-off on 11 June 2010. We further want to embark on a mass mobilisation campaign that will expose the province to potential markets with regards to all programmes within the department.
Ke Nako, Celebrate Africa’s Humanity
Ke Nako!!!
We should all brace ourselves for the event as alluded to by the honourable premier during the state of the province address when she said: “The 2010 World Cup and its capacity to contribute to economic development, job creation, poverty minimisation and social cohesion can never be taken for granted. We have an opportunity to ensure that we market this province to the world and during the 2010 World Cup we will be rolling the carpets for the world to come and play in our backyards. I am confident that a number of short and long term jobs have been created and our surrounding communities will benefit from this”
We want to assure this august house that the gaps and challenges identified during the confederations Cup will be given to due attention. Honourable speaker we are pleased to inform the house that our department received unqualified audit reports for the past four consecutive years. Allow me to present the department’s budget vote for the current financial year.
Programme 1: Administration
R59.594 million
This amount is allocated to the programme which, its main objective is to account and manage public funds, to provide human resources, financial and general administrative support services. In addition, it provides executive management, technical and administrative leadership.
Programme 2: Cultural affairs
R88.458 million
The programme’s main objective is to promote culture, conserve and manage the cultural, historical assets and resources, of the province by rendering various services.
Programme 3: Library and information services
R115.782 million
This programme’s main objective is to assist local library authorities in rendering of public library services and providing of an archive in the province.
Programme 4: Sport and Recreation
R224.337 million
This programme’s main objective is the promotion of sport and recreation to contribute towards the reconciliation and development of the North West Province community through the provision of equitable, accessible and affordable facilities, programmes and services.
In the above amount are funds for Confederations Cup R50 million and for 2010 FIFA World Cup R60 million.
Our budget is R488 million excluding these figures. Be reminded that this amount is given to us by treasury for the 2010 project.
In conclusion, I want to thank everyone who has assisted me in my new role; in particular the honourable premier, executive committee colleagues, honourable members of the portfolio committee, deputy director general and her team and all the stakeholders of the department including public entities and sport, arts and culture communities.
Sincere thanks are conveyed to the leadership of the alliance and the entire community that entrusted me with this huge responsibility. Finally let me thank my husband and family for their invaluable support.
Ke a leboga
Enkosi
Baie dankie
Salaams
Thank you
Issued by: Department of Sports, Arts and Culture, North West Provincial Government
8 July 2009
Source: Department of Sports, Arts and Culture, North West Provincial Government (http://www.nwpg.gov.za/)
