Portfolio Committee on SRAC calls upon the Gauteng Department of SACR to reprioritize its 2020-21 FY Annual Performance Plan and Allocated Budget (002)
The Portfolio Committee on Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture calls upon the Gauteng Department of Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation to reprioritize its 2020/21 FY Annual Performance Plan and Allocated Budget to focus on Infrastructure projects and virtual events.
Gauteng Provincial Legislature Portfolio Committee on Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture, led by the Chairperson Honourable William Matsheke held a virtual meeting with the Gauteng Department of Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation as part of its oversight mandate. The Portfolio Committee received presentations from the department on their 5 years strategic plans, Annual Performance Plans and Budget Vote 12. During the presentation, the department led by MEC Mbali Hlophe, Acting HOD Vuyani Mpofu and senior management indicated that the COVID19 pandemic has affected most of the planned activities of the department especially considering the department is one department that is events driven.
In most cases most of the events needs a large amount of people and physical contact which is against the regulations of the current lockdown. The most affected events are in the Arts and Culture programmes and Sports programmes such as school sports and others. These events forms part of the events that are funded through the conditional grants from the National Department. The department further indicated that in the next few weeks they will be revising their 2020/2021 APP and 2020/2021 Budget to respond to the COVID19 pandemic. They further indicated that they are working closely with the Gauteng Department of Economic Development through Gauteng Enterprise Propeller to provide relief funding to Arts, Culture and Sports Sector in the Province, the plans thereof will be announced in due course.
The Committee noted and appreciated the presentations and called upon the department to reprioritize some of its allocated budget to infrastructure Projects namely sports and outstanding libraries and further plan virtual events to support the sector. The Committee indicated that Sport Infrastructure remains an integral part of promotion of healthy lifestyles amongst communities and to inculcate the culture of reading through virtual and physical libraries to promote healthy mindset. These two are integral part of promoting a healthy society in order to fight some of the comorbidities such as hypertension amongst others as identified by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases as some of the challenges in fighting COVID19 pandemic.
The Committee further calls upon the Gauteng Film Commission as part of their mandate to produce content that will educate our people through virtual arts about adhering to the COVID19 pandemic regulations on washing of hands with soap or alcohol based hand sanitizers, wearing of cloth masks in the public space and social distancing.
Enquiries:
Aubrey Dikola
Tel: 011 498 6321
Cell: 079 500 9256
E-mail: Adikola@gpl.gov.za
