Date: 22/04/2010
Source: African Christian Democratic Party
Title: ACDP: Dudley: Speech by ACDP Member of Parliament on the Sport and Recreation budget vote, National Assembly

"As far back as 2008, <#_ftn1> The National Sports Indaba in Kwazulu Natal highlighted the urgency of access to resources and a new funding mechanism including the role of the National Lottery:

The Lotto bottleneck has been allowed to continue and presently the Board is reported to be sitting on about 100 million rand. These funds are proving to be near impossible to get out of them and when funds are released they arrive long after the event for which they were intended. Hon Minister, what has been done about the new funding mechanism specifically concerning the role of the National Lottery?

The ACDP is disturbed to learn that national sports team members are required to personally fund large sums of money in order to represent South Africa. The expression seems to be "You pay, you play - you don't, you stay". This means the nation's best are often not participating at international sports events. Many talented players come from very poor backgrounds and even for those not so poor find the sums too much to find. Right now the National Women's Softball team is having to find 25,000 rand per player to take part in the World Series in June and last year the National hockey team went to Argentina to play some of the top teams in the world - and players who went had to find 10,000 rand. This is a national disgrace.

Emphasis has been placed on the 2010 FIFA World Cup by the President in his State of the Nation Address and due to the amount of planning and preparations involved, the Department of Sport and Recreation disbursed R461, 106, 500 in 2009 for the purpose of stadia construction and upgrading. The cities and municipalities spent R542, 326, 068 bringing the total expenditure of the National Grant funds to R12, 757, 747,886.

While these thousands of billions of rands change hands and accomplish their objectives in South Africa, we are still grappling with basics like disparities in access to sport. Much still needs to be done to meet the sporting and training needs of our nation including access for marginalised communities; equitable participation especially for women, youth and persons with disabilities; development of school sports; and sporting facilities, equipment and sports kit in poor (especially rural), communities.

South Africa needs innovative and effective interventions by this department and all stakeholders to actively promote community development, and safer communities, helping to reduce the negative impact of poverty, violence and crime.

South Africa's transition to democracy has brought great progress for many of its people and advances have been made in bridging past divisions. However tensions still exist and are at times fanned unnecessarily. At the same time inequalities still exist and as long as they do interventions must be found to promote equitable access to recreational resources and facilities.

Progress regarding mass participation will require the Department to strengthen its relationship with the Department of basic Education in the delivery of school sports programmes. What are the issues here Hon Minister...why does progress seem continuously limited? The mass participation programme consumes a huge portion of the budget and there appears to be no meaningful value for this money... no clear impact on the ground. The ACDP joins others in calling for the exorbitant funding allocated to Love Life to be redirected appropriately.

The ACDP notes the necessary additional R15.6 million to the South African Institute for Drug-Free Sport to meet the minimum conditions of the revised World Anti-Doping Code. We also support the need to increase expenditure on consultants to train more athletes through the sport science institute in preparation for the 2012 Olympics and for research on medical and scientific interventions.

The ACDP calls on the department to closely monitor the procurement of gymnasium equipment to selected municipalities...is this gymnasium equipment reaching intended recipients including rural people?

The ACDP believes sport has a meaningful role to play in transformation, community development and peace and must therefore be organized and presented in a manner conducive to achieving these challenging objectives. The ACDP will support this budget."