Report of Ad Hoc Committee on Sport and Recreation on Budget Vote 20—Sport and Recreation South Africa, dated 8 June 2004:

Report of Ad Hoc Committee on Sport and Recreation on Budget Vote 20—Sport and Recreation South Africa, dated 8 June 2004:

Introduction
The Committee has considered the Strategic Plan for 2004/07 and the Budget Vote presented by Sport and Recreation South Africa on 1 June 2004, which informed deliberations on the Vote. The presented budget allocation is as follows:

_ The total amount for 2004/05 allocated to Sport and Recreation South Africa is R286 221 with the anticipation of receiving R180 628 for the year 2005/06. The 2004/05 budget is divided into three programmes which are: Programme 1: Administration (8% of the total); Programme 2:
Funding, Policy and Liaison (44%) and Building for Sport and Recreation (48%).

_ Programme 2 has increased their workload by having new initiatives like mass participation project, national academies and school sport programs.

Transfer payments is the core function, with sub-programmes that have other responsibilities like bidding and hosting strategy, the SRSA Conference and booklet on tax implications for National Federations. It has to introduce more funding for the appointment of personnel and to set aside funding for hosting events. The total amount for transfer payments is R85 977 000 including special projects.

_ Programme 3, building for sports will in future transfer resources to the Municipal Infrastructure Grant in the Department of Local Government.

The role of the Department of Sport and Recreation will be advocacy, communications strategy; monitoring and evaluation and not building.

_ The Committee also had an opportunity to engage on budgetary issues with USSSA; SAGF; DISSA and SAIDS.

United School Sport Association of South Africa (USSASA)
School sport programme:
_ Allocation is not sufficient and there was a concern about the omission of development programmes like the Letsema project.
_ There is a need to look at how sport codes are sponsored like rugby, cricket, etc and the department should bring on board the neglected codes like chess, drum majorettes.
_ Golf needed to be introduced to USSASA and there are many teachers volunteering because presently is not organized by them.
_ It was noted that USSASA voluntarily took responsibility of school sport and SRSA made funds available and assisted with programmes.
_ A decision as to who is responsible for school sport should be taken, i.e. Department of Education. USSASA need to meet with SRSA and the Education department to discuss issues on school sport. Mass participation:
_ Only the departments are involved but not USSASA and they need to be involved since they are aware of structures that need intervention. They also appealed to be involved in local societies and councils. There are programmes initiated by USSASA and at the same time the department has its own progammes in each province.
_ USSASA have volunteers but don’t have money except sponsorship from Shoprite to develop netball.
_ Children are not made to pay for themselves when selected to represent the country or district but there is no provision of funding for that and the Portfolio Committee was urged to recognize this challenge. _ USSASA is in partnership with Lovelife.
_ A database should be available to point out where school sport is happening and where it is not happening.

Comments:
The Committee would like to know the position of the agreement between SRSA and the Department of Education on school sport. The department should provide the Committee
with what Education department has done and when implementation of the agreement will take place. The department confirmed that the agreement has been reached but the former Minister did not sign the decision. That decision has to be introduced to the new Ministers. A follow-up meeting should be convened involving USSASA; Department of Education; SRSA, provincial sport departments and provincial and local government sport desks that would clarify the responsibilities and resources.

South African Gymnastics Federation (SAGF)
_ Administration is a big issue and SAGF has to come up with a plan of action and that does not require too many people.
_ Programmes like Gymnastics for All is in place preparing for the 2011 Gymnaestrada event from youngsters to elderly people.
_ SAGF can supply training of coaches and players if requested.
_ The federation needs to see more medals, representivity and talent identification from young talent with the assistance of teachers.
_ Gymnastics is not part of Zone VI. A centre of excellence has been identified for training.

Comments:
The 2011 Gymnaestrada should be discussed with the Minister in terms of resources in the country. SCORE, Playing for Peace and Sport for All need to be brought on board. The concern on expansion of the budget was to focus on mass participation, school sport and national academies according to the department. The serious concern of 40c per child per year was a matter for discussion during Budget Vote 20 on 15 June in the National Assembly. Children sniffing glue and some engaged in sexual activities at young ages that as a result them contaminate HIV are a result of a lack of a housing plan with sport facilities inclusive in the plan.

Disability Sport South Africa (DISSA)
_ Funding for administration is a serious issue. Inadequate funding resulted in three managers being retrenched.
_ Lottery is very active in funding allocation
_ Sport and Recreation South Africa should develop an analysis for disabled, as DISSA has no statistics, no database and no formal registers or membership.
_ There should be development of projects to improve disabled sport people.
_ School sport is welcomed but preferred to be part of the curriculum.
_ All department programmes should include disabled people.
_ DISSA received an amount of R2.5m R500 000 for administration and R1, 5m for Paralympics, etc
_ There was an internal workshop looking at technology to all sporting codes.
_ CSIR decided to revise their policy on technology to all SA sport and to make it accessible to all including DISSA.
_ No public transport is provided by the Department of Transport for the disabled and seating arrangements are frustrating as the disabled persons are often separated from partners. There is also an urgent need for a facility for deaf people.

Comments:
The Chairperson highlighted the concerns and areas targeted during the study tours to provinces where accessibility to facilities by disabled, as spectators were unsatisfactory.

After the study tours, the Committee agreed that a person from DISSA should sit at all the Tender Committee meetings for adjudication. The facilities are also not user-friendly and disabled persons are isolated which could be a problem to evacuate them in the event of a disaster.

Special schools visited during the study tour had facilities that are not maintained by the department. Old facilities with no accessibility to toilets are a big issue. Two athletes from Ikhwezi Lokusa have been taken to Gauteng for the preparations of Olympics due to a lack of well-resourced facilities in the Eastern Cape. Deaf people cannot enjoy games because TV does not cater for them. The only popular sport in special schools is dance sport and promotion is not done for the community.

The department emphasized the importance of Safety in Stadiums Bill that will look at rectifying all problems faced by DISSA and will also look at their funding problems. The Committee was given the task of interacting with municipalities in relation to fees charged by municipalities.

South African Sports Commission (SASC)
The CEO of SASC, Dr. Phaahla, presented their programme and highlighted some issues
of concern. He noted that all macro bodies have signed a cooperation agreement that binds them to finalizing current arrangements on what functions go to who. When the agreement is final then structures will be allocated resources according to their relevance. He mentioned that mass participation is a major challenge as SASC’s responsibility is to increase high profile by ensuring representation of SA in Zone VI games; Commonwealth Games etc.

They are also responsible for raising funds externally and private sector will come in where mileage is gained. Monitoring of development plans and transformation processes and being command of resources are issues which if not addressed will again result in a continuous need to be restructured. He mentioned a confederation that was recommended by the Ministerial Task Team that will ease confusion from federations on using same sponsors. Dr Phaahla also noted that sponsors need publicity that including live TV coverage. He also indicated that he needed to be given an opportunity by the Committee to present the Commission’s year plans in the future.

Comments:
The Committee wanted to know how much has SASC fund raised outside government sources. The Committee advised the Commission that foreign and local businesses should be involved in contribute to the country was suggested. Also major sponsors should maximize the money to federations. Issues of training given to local clubs and sport bodies came up especially when filling application forms for sponsorship and accessing of those forms. The Chairperson referred to requirements such as a 3 year audited bank statement that local clubs don’t have.

Hearings were also held with institutions that the Committee has oversight over and also provincial heads of department and chairpersons of standing committees on sport and recreation. The hearings took place on Friday, 4 June and Tuesday, 8 June 2004. The provinces that were present were: the Eastern Cape; Free State; Gauteng; KwaZulu- Natal; Limpopo; Mpumalanga; Northern Cape and Western Cape.

Mpumalanga: Chairperson of Standing Committee on Sport and Recreation Ms. D Pule
Issues raised include:
_ Lack of transformation and implementation of MTT recommendations has not taken place yet.
_ Federations are affected by political borders created in 1994 and have not managed to fastrack transformation and development of those federations that are in the province
_ As a result of the restructuring of Lottery distribution agents on sport is that the Act does not allow provincial structures to distribute the allocations.
_ Criteria used by the Lottery Fund of having to provide 3-year audited bank statements defeats the intention of the strategy
_ Need for poverty alleviation sustainability
_ Mpumalanga love to host a national team but there is no facility allowing that and other provinces therefore benefit from such activities. 2010 World Cup is going to assist as the Bid Committee indicated in the planning that they would have a stadium built at Mbombela.
_ Indigenous Games – the province considered a strategy to export games in other African countries and at some point to celebrate social diversity of African people through sport perhaps at Olympic level.
_ Need to begin to streamline games run by provincial structures and government to impact on communities, e.g. USSASA at primary and secondary school games.

Free State Legislature: Chairperson: Mr. P Maloka
_ Sport programs are divided into 5 programmes, i.e. management; sport; unfunded recreation; unfunded school sport and unfounded development corporation. The biggest problem is not only retaining access to the existing sport facilities but also the lack of facilities especially in disadvantaged areas. Facilities that are available are difficult to access due to high entry fees.
_ Sport and Recreation South Africa in collaboration with Local Government is responsible for ensuring that multipurpose facilities are built in these areas.
_ Provincial Department of Sport together with SRSA needs to concentrate on the establishment of active community clubs for development.
_ The biggest problem facing development of sport is to operate on a tight schedule and the impact PAKISA had. Interventions have taken place regarding all these problems.
_ There is a backlog of vacancies to be filled and discussions are taking place.
_ Lack of transformation is also a problem.
_ Total Budget from MTEF 2004/05 is R15 133m; 2005/06 is R10 756m and 2006/07 is R17 954million.

Limpopo: Director: Sport and Recreation: Mr. S Pila
Issues raised were:
_ The department is divided into three (3) sub units i.e. Sports development; Recreation for women and youth and Facility development. Limpopo is one of the poorest provinces. It is underdeveloped and villages are far apart.
_ Lack of transformation in the federations and sport structures is a serious problem.
_ Dysfunctional sport council in the province is because of a lack of unity and no coherent development programmes. The reason is that the Budget of R4, 3m has to help federations, school sport and other developments. The department of sport is the least funded compared to other departments.
_ In the current year it has been an objective to develop a sports academy and have an academy of sport, which is not up, and running as the department would want it to. A former College of Education building has been acquired to service the provincial academy and would use other colleges of education as satellite academies. The need of advice from the Parliamentary Committee on where finances could be sourced was requested.
_ He requested a directive for 2010 to be sent to provinces on the way to go and ease confusion.

Eastern Cape: Chairperson: Sport and Recreation: Mr. D Neer
Issues raised were:
_ Insufficient budget is highlighted in the Business Plan
_ Transformation has to be addressed especially when it comes to demarcation because some sport codes do not follow political boundaries like cricket, rugby and football. This creates problems in terms of funding, coordination and sport development in general.
_ Very little transformation has been done in school sport especially during Easter tournaments where one could notice that previously advantaged schools are still advantaged and sponsored by big businesses. The budget has a difficulty in addressing this disparity.
_ Women participation is an issue that needs to be addressed both at provincial and national level.
_ Distribution of facilities to the communities continues to be a major challenge in the province and makes it difficult to address the backlog in improving the life of people in the rural communities.
_ The department although faced with scarcity of funds has allocated money to build Village Greens in rural communities where open spaces are identified. _ The mass participation programme is one of the areas that will give an opportunity to involve women.
_ The Budget for 2004/05 is R17 449m including R1m for mass participation.

Northern Cape: Chairperson on Standing on Sport and Recreation: Nkosi J Galela
Issues raised were:
_ The provincial standing committee identified the principles that underpin all programmes and activities of the department and most of those principles emerge from the commitments made during the elections. Need to ensure that all the programmes that are going to be taken in the province should be geared towards a situation of job creation and if not, that programme would be turned down by the Committee. Job creation should be linked with retention of those particular jobs that are created. The department is then requested to shape their Business Plan to ensure job creation also addresses poverty alleviation in the province.
_ The province is underdeveloped and a large portion of the budget should be geared towards infrastructural development.
_ Programmes need to make meaningful input towards economic development for the province.
_ Transformation is a matter of concern in all sport codes, especially in rugby. Rugby has been very exclusive in terms of its practices and has requested the department to ensure speedy transformation of that code as soon as possible.
_ Inclusivity – "a child in sport is a child out of court". It is important to ensure that young people and disabled are participating in all sport codes.
_ A big concern is that the province has fewer people but is geographically vast and as a result most of the money is spent on traveling more than real implementation of those particular programmes.

Head of Department Sport and Recreation: Northern Cape: Mr. H Esau
_ Through the department’s vision of excellence, the province hopes to have soccer players participating in the national team for the first time in the 2010 World Cup.
_ The core business is to promote and develop sport and recreation as follows:
- to promote sport as a recreational activity through mass participation
- to implement youth programmes as alternative to anti-social behaviour
- to promote women sport and recreation
- to promote disabled sport development
- to coordinate sport development in partnership with the academy of sport in the province.
- To assist athletes and federations through sport development fund and to drive transformation in sport and recreation.
_ Sport and Recreation is programme 4 consisting of 4 sub-programmes, Programme 1is management with allocation of R1, 956m
_ Sub-programme 2 is Sports Development with R4. 1m inclusive of R1, 7m for infrastructure development for sport facilities
_ Recreation has sum of R400 000 set aside and school sport is unfunded.
_ The department has managed in 2003/04 to build and officially open facilities and also upgrade some.
_ Provincial programmes hosted the Manne Dipico Development Games involving 20 000 athletes from 17 different sporting codes and 275 athletes represented the province at the SA Games in East London.
_ Women sport, courses have been conducted in soccer and hockey and instructors trained through SASC and in partnership with SCORE with 5000 youth involved. 12 development camps of coaching have been conducted for disabled, netball and volleyball camps.
_ Transformation is an ongoing process.
_ Total allocation of Budget is R6, 456m
_ The department will focus at women and disabled sport and has targeted Upington for the first satellite academy to be open soon. There is money set aside for outreach programmes and also supporting children studying in Cuba at a cost of R30 000 per child. Sport councils will be appointed soon.
_ Have a schedule of engaging with federations on one-on-one basis where they are requested to present to the MEC their development plans.
_ Provincial Portfolio Committee has been requested to assist on transformation of federations at a political level.
_ School sport has no funds but there is direction and a hope to finalise matters looking at targeting learners for 2010.
_ The province feels neglected when it comes to building of facilities creates a problem of youth turning to drugs.

Gauteng: MPL of Standing Committee on Sport & Recreation: Ms F Mazibuko
Issues raised were:
_ The Committee is looking at focusing on the strategic priorities for the next 5 years.
_ The total Budget allocated for 2004/05 is R55 059m with 171 staff members employed. An amount of R1m conditional grant has been received. Women sport gets least funding.
_ New codes will be introduced in the disadvantaged areas.
_ The province has a lot of facilities but they are not accessible to disabled people due to their location.
_ The Premier made it his responsibility to encourage the big clubs to host their games in Gauteng (e.g. Manchester United who always play its games in their home ground) was cited. That will also improve the present poor attendance of matches because of transport costs.

Western Cape: Chairperson of Sport & Recreation: Mr. A Lewis
Issues raised were:
_ Transformation is a wide topic with various levels involved in it e.g. policy, teams etc and it is high on the Committee’s agenda. The Premier also emphasized implementation programmes that will "create the Western Cape Home for All". There are difficult issues that the Committee has to deal with including Boland schools.
_ School sport used to be under the Education Department and nothing happened then until it was transferred back to the Sport department.
_ Budget has been agreed upon before the elections and has to be revisited and realign policies or even redraft policies in line with the policy objectives to be achieved in the province.

KwaZulu-Natal: Director of Sport and Recreation: Mr. G V Sangweni
Issues raised were:
_ The objective is to promote participation and development of sport and to facilitate sport programmes and events. Some of the targets for 2004 are to coordinate provision of sport facilities in designated areas with 16 projects identified.
_ To organize mass participation in the identified nodes and spread to the whole province and all participants to be interviewed who will work with the programmes.
_ A provincial deputy director will be a coordinator and below him will be monitoring sport officers to ensure that mass participation programme take off.
_ A sum of R700 000 is set aside for provincial events. Programmes focusing on school sport will be implemented and activities would be to initiate programmes focusing on school sport.
_ A management plan will be developed for those affected and infected by HIV/AIDS.
_ Development and implementation of HIV plan to facilitate the young champions project to address moral regeneration with a number of performance measures and a number of awareness seminars, a number of officials and counselors trained and federations represented and trained. Young champions programme is tied to mass participation.
_ Provision of professional assistance to Premier Soccer League organization to provide them with specialized management skills to members of the PSL.
_ Total Budget for 2004/05 is R23m does not enable the province to move, as they would like to and hoping to get more funding from National Treasury.
_ Have plans for interdepartmental engagements with partnerships with the Departments of Education for school sport; Health for promotion of HIV/AIDS; Public Works concerning the projects identified for delivery of sport facilities; Traditional Affairs for local government to supplement efforts of building facilities; Correctional Services regarding recreational and rehabilitation programmes for prisoners; Transport regarding transportation to games and Arts,
Culture and Tourism regarding Freedom Day, Sport exhibition and other cultural activities, etc.

Comments:
The Chairperson appreciated the presentations done by the provinces. She took the meeting as a step further towards what the Committee has been doing in the past five years. A small delegation will be visiting provinces to interact with officials and be met with the MECs on the arrival. The Committee is not certain on what level reports of the Portfolio Committee are discussed at provincial level and also by the national department for sport as well as the Sport Commission. It should be noted that when the Committee goes on an oversight visit, it is not going to provide oversight in the sense of policing but to identify and evaluate the progress that is made in terms of the changes that are taking place in the country. The Committee also has to evaluate the impact of the programmes that are involved and assess the congruence between the programmes of the provinces and the national vision as well as assess whether the resources that available match with the needs that are on the ground and the expectations that are to be met. The Chairperson emphasized the importance of the State of the Nation Address as it outlines key areas of focus of the country and each department and then gives us all the marching lines that need to be followed by departments and structures charged with the responsibility of taking the country forward.

This year the approach that is going to be followed is to do things with the new minister and new MECs in line with the direction in terms of reflecting to the State of Nation Address by the President. The address was not clouded with too much politics but more of a programme of action with time frames. If thePresident can address the nation in a project management format it means we are all expected to follow that direction. We are not going to talk about the programmes in general but to talk about the programmes In relation to the problems that we are addressing change that we need to see and also in relation to time frames.

Professor Hendricks, the Head of Department for Sport and Recreation South Africa took the meeting through the priority areas outlined by the President and how the department is going to be responding to them so that gaps can be identified and a follow up action agreed on for realignment with what the President wants and what the Minister in the department wants and what the provinces are going to be doing. Then the Committee will take the matter further to the local government structures so that we all move as a coordinated force in transforming sport in the country.

The Committee has also decided to interrogate its study tour reports since most of the issues highlighted by the provinces also appear in the reports. The Committee will also look at bilateral agreement such as the Cuban Model of mass participation and what assistance can be requested from Cuba. What could be learnt from Manchester United who had similar social problems like and what Sister City programmes can be developed using sport and bilateral agreements. The President offered to accompany the former Minister of Sport to the Minister of Finance to acquire more funds and the Committee will follow that offer up.

The Committee also needs to reactivate that offer since we have become aware of the fact that our budget is equal to 40c per child per year. A suggestion was that instead of study tours to provinces a workshop should be planned to decide on inputs that would be used to influence change in the budget and to make an input to the MTEF that will be finalized in August by Sport and Recreation South Africa.

The Committee wishes to thank all those who participated in its budget hearings for their valuable insights and contributions.