Sport & Recreation: Minister's Budget Speech

Budget Vote speech as delivered by Minister of Sport and Recreation Fikile Mbalula at the National Assembly

13 Apr 2011

“Shifting the Paradigm for Optimal Performance”

The Chairperson

Cabinet Colleagues

Former Minister: Dr Ben Ngubane

Members of Parliament

Ladies and gentlemen

Today we have the singular honour of presenting this Budget Vote number 20 of the Department of Sport and Recreation in the presence of sport administrators, coaches and the crown jewel of our country, the players themselves! We salute all and welcome the personalities and luminaries present here in the Gallery for gracing this occasion with their presence.

Chairperson, allow me to pay tribute to the late Director-General of Sport and Recreation, Mr Vivian Peterson, whose untimely death robbed us of a dedicated, committed and experienced civil servant.

As we thrust ahead towards the centenary of the African National Congress(ANC) in 2012, reflections on the long road traversed occupy our daily thoughts, it is palpable that those vistas give way to lessons learned, and the long road that still lies ahead of us in achieving a better life for all, inclusive economy and inter-social cohesion.

Our zeal for common purpose, our zing for optimal excellence, and our zip for unity of purpose pushes us forward, and energises us to wake up every morning to do more for a better life for all our people.

Chairperson, allow me at this first budget vote after the successful hosting of the 2010 World Cup to pay homage to the extraordinary will power, fortitude and unity of purpose which was demonstrated by our people, united by the common desire to assail. 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!

This excellence resonates the values and virtues of our renewed vision of the Department of Sport and Recreation. This fundamental shift in paradigm is anchored in our overarching strategy, our new Road Map for Optimal Performance. This Road Map, our vision which was developed together with the federations and provincial department seeks to reposition our functional efficiencies, accelerate service delivery, enhance organisational excellence, and inject new performance energy.

Chairperson, as you would notice, contrary to ordinary trend, what we present before you is a budget characterised by shrinkage from a staggering R1,225 billion in 2010/11 to R802 million in 2011/12 financial year. On aggregate, in 2007/08 financial year it stood at R5 billion and to-date it stands at R802 million an annualised decrease of about 40 percent.

Of course, the down swing can be attributed to the prior years’ budget of 2010 World Cup, however, maintaining and managing the legacy created, which includes the repositioning of the department, demands, in real terms an increased expenditure, and not the opposite.

Chairperson, our budget structure reflects absolute resonance with our strategic priorities in our strategic planning document as presented to the Parliament. The bulk of our budget still goes to mass participation, which seeks to unlock the value of school sport and community sport.

Chairperson, our country is still witnessing a sporting environment where there is a skewed picture of sporting facilities and opportunities. It is a responsibility of this government to fundamentally change the status quo, and ensure that South Africa has national teams and the amenities are a true reflection of South Africa’s population.

At the same time, we call upon Parliament and the people of the Republic 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.

We want to achieve inclusivity and consensus on what each federation or club’s contribution is or will be towards the realisation of the priorities of national objectives. In order to ensure that our actions are focused and directed, the department together with the stakeholders have started a process of drawing up a transformation charter which will apply to all sports organisations. The transformation charter will be a product of extensive and wide-ranging consultation and robust debates.

Chairperson, we are finalising a collaborating pact with the Department of Basic Education as our immediate task of reviving school sport, particularly in rural areas and townships. We believe the future of the South African youth lies in positioning schools as incubators and nurseries for talented and professional sportspersons.

One of our football luminaries Dr Steve Makone, known as “Kalamazoo”, who is the first black professional football player in South Africa, modern England and the Netherlands wrote to commend us on our programme to prioritise school sport codes. He writes:

“Such aggressive push is long overdue. Not only will such a development help in improving the standard of play in the different sport, it will also assist in promoting the health of our youth.”

We are also grateful for the initiative of the Premier Soccer League (PSL) and Supersport in the School Sport programme. The PSL and Supersport together with the SRSA will be launching a tailored programme of twinning schools with PSL teams. The project will also be launched in May to coincide with the launch of the Schools Sport. We are partnering with the South African Ruby Union to revive Rugby on a national scale. We also want to take this opportunity to congratulate the University of Cape Town (UCT) team for winning the Rugby Varsity Cup of Cups.

Accordingly, we salute the Rugby Sevens as a strategic platform for development, and their sterling performance of winning no less than two world cup series. By the same token, we wish to congratulate Zanele Situ from Mthatha who won the gold in Javelin in the Para-Olympics in Sydney as a disabled person in the wheelchair.

Chairperson, our collaboration with the Congress of Traditional Leaders (CONTRALESA) is beginning to yield results. Together with CONTRALESA we have identified rural communities where we will be directing our mass participation programme initiative on a national scale. The department will be launching one of such programmes in Mqanduli in the Eastern Cape over the Easter Holidays.

Equally, we are working with SASCOC to carry out the responsibility of building a Boxing Multi-purpose-Centre in Mdantsane, the Mecca of Boxing South Africa. Chairperson, the glaring absence of sport and recreation facilities in our schools and in our communities can no longer be tolerated, and 16 years into our democracy, we have to break this dreadful infrastructure backlog, particularly in disadvantaged communities. To address this anomaly, we are engaged with the Departments for Human Settlement and of Cooperative Governance respectively to redirect Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) to Sport and Recreation to ensure seamless roll out of schools and communities sport and recreation facilities.

Recreation remains an epicentre to cultural identity, community development, and social integration. We will be lifting and escalating and raising the focus on this functional area. In the same vein, we will also be streamlining recreational associations, and appointing the Ministerial Advisory Committee to advise and assist in detailed conceptualisation of this field.

Chairperson, the advancement of sport and recreation development in our country 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 the German Government.

As a result of these relations, during the next financial year, we will receive a total amount of more than six point four million euros (6.4 million euros) being allocated towards the three areas of (a) 1.6 million euros for Youth Development through Football which is earmarked strictly for South Africa, (b) three hundred and thirty thousand euros (330 000.00 euros) for Youth Development through Football earmarked for the rest of Africa and (c) 1.5 million euros for Youth Development Against Violence through Sport. We are escalating our campaign to mobilise more resources from the private sector and the international donor community to support our fledging Youth Camps Programme and talent development programmes.

Chairperson, unlocking the value, the potential and the achieving the mandate and priorities of the demands that the baseline allocation to SRSA is increased and augmented in the immediate, and we will be engaging National treasury in this regard. We view this proposition with the outmost importance it deserves.

We have in our brief time in office engaged with most of the Federations, and we will continue these engagements with the others we have not met. We must state unambiguously that we are not going to allow the Ministry to be turned into a fire-fighting brigade by individuals within the Federations who have no national interest or pride. We are guided by principles of transparency, fairness and good corporate governance. We will work, as we do, with any organisation or individual that stands by these principles. Federations must get their house in order, and we will continue supporting them with every possible resource we have at our disposal.

Federations and any individual are cautioned to desist from binding and committing to host major events before getting SASCOC and government approval. Procedures, guidelines and rules on bidding must be followed. Those who do not comply with these prescripts will have to face the consequences.

Chairperson, for that we owe it to all South Africans to ensure that the 800 million rands allocated by FIFA to the FIFA Legacy Trust is utilised for sport development, especially in rural areas and townships. We have appointed the most senior official from our Department to ensure that we achieve this objective, and that there is transparency and accountability to the nation and government on the disbursement and utilisation of the funds.

We have just completed a report on Social cohesion and Nation building impact of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The finding, indeed confirms that the World Cup notched up and had a significant positive impact on social cohesion and nationhood, social integration and sustainable livelihood. We will be requesting the Speaker of the National Assembly for a debate on the lessons drawn from this report.

To this end, as we announced earlier on that we will stage a football extravaganza between the World Cup Champions Spain and Africa eleven in July 2011. This football extravaganza is organised in all humility to say thank the people of Africa and all fellow patriots who were involved in this event of local international significance.

Chairperson, allow me once again to bring to us and the broader South African populace our collective memory on those who died at Ellis park stadium on 11 April 2001. Ten years on we should bow down our heads and remember those 43 people who came to watch a great game and were met with this unfortunate event. Let their memory never fade.

SRSA has formulated guidelines on safe hosting of these events, and the Safety at Sport and Recreation Events Act was promulgated in August 2010. I am happy to announce that the updated White Paper on Sport and Recreation has been finalised. The purpose of this White Paper is to pronounce on Governments’ policy regarding sport and recreation in South Africa.

As we all know there is a significant need for a revised central and unified sport and recreation policy framework encompassing new initiatives and cooperation within a wider network of roleplayers.

Chairperson, the year 2011 has been, and will be another exciting year of international sport events for Team South Africa.

The National Netball team, will be travelling to Singapore to participate in the International Championships in July. We must continue in the spirit of Magnificent Friday to support “Amantombazana” during their search to lift the trophy and make us proud.

The Springboks will travel to New Zealand to defend their 2007 World Cup title. With the good mix of new youthful talent and experience in the Springbok team, I am confident that if they stick to the structure that brought them success against England in 2007, they have all the potential to reach the semi-finals, finals and triumph.

Banyanabanyana, the National Womens’ Football team are two victories away from qualifying for the Olympic Games in London 2012. The All Africa Games will take place in September 2011, in Mozambique. South Africa is on the road to London Olympic Games in 2012 and we will triumph. We will continue working with SASCOC for the successful hosting of the 123rd International Olympic Committee (IOC) General Assembly Session in Durban from 1 to 9 July 2011. This event will also be an opportunity to put South Africa and our perspective on the world map in areas of sport development and will be attended by several heads of state, royal families, sport personalities and administrators from around the world. This will further be an opportunity for the three cities bidding to host the 2018 Winter Games to present their bids to the IOC.

The winning city will be announced via live broadcast during the duration of the conference. These major events, contributed tremendously to the economic output of our country. Sport Economy as a matter of fact contributes enormously to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and continues to grow, with down-stream employment creation, entrepreneurship and economic integration.

Chairperson, we will continue to turn around the operational mode on how we conduct our business as a department and portfolio of sport and recreation, and realign our outputs to our strategic national outcomes. This we do, fully aware that it would be a long, arduous struggle which would require vision, determination and commitment.

It is incumbent upon us to work in unison, to construct a social compact with all stakeholders that will harness our collective resolve, underpinned by our shared values and common vision. As the Japanese proverb goes:

“A vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare”

Honourable members, finally, I would like to thank the Deputy Minister, Mr Gert Ootsthuizen, the Acting Director-General, Ms Summaya Khan and all those senior managers who ensure that the grinding mill produces the products and supply. To the department, I say, we must always remember our central drive on this year of action: making government work faster, harder and smarter, with less.

I thank the Portfolio Committee on Sport and Recreation under the leadership of Mr. Butana Kompela, for his leadership in the Portfolio Committee and we look forward to the continued constructive oversight role of the Portfolio Committee. I thank the Staff in the Ministry for their commitment and support, and going beyond the call of duty for the Ministry to stay ahead of the game. Last but not least my beloved wife and my two daughters, for the undying support and understanding of my ever busy schedule.

We are combat ready to join all South Africans in the battle trenches for a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic, accessible, integrated and united sport and recreation system in 2011 and beyond.

Honourable members, we therefore present to the House budget vote number 20 of the Department of Sport and Recreation South Africa.

I thank you!

Enquires:
Paena Galane
Cell: 079 509 9833

Issued by: Sport and Recreation South Africa
13 Apr 2011