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Date : 31/05/2006
Source: Sport and Recreation South Africa
Title: Oosthuizen: Sport and Recreation Dept Budget Vote 2006/07


  Sport and Recreation Budget Vote 2006/07 speech by Deputy Minister of Sport and Recreation G C Oosthuizen

Madame Speaker

The White Paper on Sport and Recreation, the Department’s primary policy document identifies the shortcomings in our sport and recreation system. It also proposes strategies to address these shortcomings. The challenges identified in the White Paper range from a lack of appreciation for the role that sport can play in our society, to the dearth of participation by the majority of our country’s people in physical activity. It also identifies a lack of resources needed for ensuring involvement in physical activity. The White Paper is as relevant today as it was when it was first launched in 1997. Despite some progress, we still have a long road to travel in the sector to achieve the objectives of the White Paper. Sport is still being trivialised in our country. It is regarded as frivolous and unimportant even though it is a multi-billion Rand industry, said to contribute more than 2% to South Africa’s GDP. In fact, sport daily occupies the time of the majority of our people and it forms part of the psyche of the majority of our country’s people. How much time do we not spend watching or reading about sport every day? Many of us start reading the newspaper from the back page.

For some, it is the only page that gets read. While Government is committed to sport and recreation, we are certainly not on par with the developed world with whom we compete. The developed world, with whom we compete have identified and committed to exploiting the potential of sport and recreation for achieving significant socio-economic and other outcomes. Even the United Nations gave credence to the role of sport by declaring 2005 “The International Year of Physical Education and Sport”. The United Nations used the prominence of the sector to promote development and foster peace, especially in post-conflict situations around the globe. Today, the U.N. speaks of Sport for Development and Peace.

We informed Parliament about the United Nations Year of Physical Education and Sport in the Budget Vote last year. Several initiatives emanated from the focus by the United Nations in our sector. I personally attended four workshops on this topic over the past year. I have come away thoroughly convinced that as South Africans we are disadvantaging ourselves by continuing to peripheralise the sector as an unimportant pastime, a luxury as it were.

We are witnessing first hand the impact that the 2010 FIFA World Cup is having in our own country, having provided the impetus for heightened levels of activity in virtually every sector. We predict that the level of activity will increase progressively as we approach 2010 when it will reach fever pitch. This demonstrates the power of sport. Within the context of ASGISA; the 2010 FIFA World Cup; sport in general can contribute towards achieving the targeted 6% growth rate by 2014. In particular, we must look at the tourism potential of sport and recreation. In 2003 tourism was recognised as a major growth sector internationally. It still is. In our own country, a Standard Bank survey found that tourism had outstripped gold mining as a revenue generator. Tourism had grossed R53 billion in 2003 while gold mining earned us R35 billion. It is recognised internationally that sports tourism comprises 30% of world tourism.

If that same model were applied to South Africa, sports tourism would have netted R15,9 billion in 2003. Unfortunately, we know that the sports tourism industry in South Africa does not match the international norm of 30% of all tourism. Sports tourism in South Africa is under-developed. There is, substantial room for growth in this sector. To address this; our Department has developed a sports tourism promotional product in close cooperation with the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism. It unveiled the tool for the first time at the Tourism Indaba in Durban earlier this month. It combines the Veza route finder tool; developed by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR); with sports information. So, if you are a visitor, one can utilise this instrument to plan attendance of sports events including mapping the route to the venue, booking accommodation and selecting restaurants and other tourist attractions at, or around the stadium; or in any part of South Africa.

Tourism is but one aspect of the sport and recreation sector that can contribute to the Accelerated Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA) and the associated Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA). There are several others. We are excited about the AsgiSA and JIPSA projects, especially as JIPSA will serve as a catalyst to integrate disparate education and training projects in the sector that will result in mutual benefit for our Department and JIPSA. While Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA) is already involved in programmes in support of AsgiSA and JIPSA, it has always been our contention that Government alone cannot cover “all the bases” in terms of the delivery of sport and recreation products to the nation. The backlog is too huge. The origins of the backlog need no elaboration here. In fact, the Reconstruction and Development Programme described the sports sectors as being “one of the worst legacies of apartheid”. That is why we need the involvement of the private and non-government organisation (NGO) sectors. In this regard, I would like to single out the contribution of SuperSport; who; in conjunction with the Wits Business School, has taken the initiative to put resources into the education and training of our top-flight sports administrators and managers.

The performances of our representative teams internationally indicate that there is a void that needs to be filled and enrolment in this programme will assist in doing so. Shortcomings in management and administration are bound to be reflected on the field of play as well. We are witnessing this currently. We are of the opinion that the challenges that we currently see at the top end in our sport, the failure of Bafana Bafana to qualify for the 2006 World Cup and their lack of achievement in the African Cup of Nations, as well as the performances of our rugby, cricket and netball teams, amongst other sports, is directly attributable to this vacuum. SuperSport have started to put their money where their mouth is and have invested an initial R6 million toward up-skilling 75 managers and administrators over the next three years.

To start with, they have laid down the gauntlet and I trust others in the private sector will follow suit. In fact, I appeal to them to do so because this is an investment in National Pride. The SuperSport initiative aligns with the second priority in our White Paper, and even though their efforts are aimed, primarily, at the top end of the continuum where they themselves have specific interests, it will serve an important purpose. Beyond that, our human resource needs are enormous. At the entry level of community, mass based sport and recreation we are in need of suitably trained and skilled people. Eliminating the dearth of qualified people at this level is important, because the foundation is vital to ensure quality at the top end. Madame Speaker, we also need quality Physical Education teachers in all our schools, not only in the more have privileged ones that can afford to had them.

We need good community sport and recreation workers to ensure that the youth from the large majority of our communities can participate and compete on a more level playing field. In short, we have to promote lifelong participation in physical activity. To start with; we must restore school sport to the status it enjoyed in the past. A status that saw the sports fields of our country flooded with learners, especially on a Wednesday afternoon, during inter-house and inter-school matches. The school-going youth enjoyed at least two periods of physical education per week. They don’t anymore! The rise in anti-social behaviour amongst our youth, unfortunately, parallels the demise in school sport and physical education. We, have to look no further than to prioritising the reintroduction of these activities in our schools. The Memorandum of Agreement between the departments of Sport and Recreation and Education facilitates this.

We are now implementing the provisions of the agreement. Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA) has introduced programmes that now see our youth competing on more equal grounds. Our teams competing internationally are now a lot more representative as a result of this. Their success, at the Zone VI schools athletics championships last month; where they made a virtual clean sweep of the medals on offer; bodes well for the future. During the course of this year we will see 798 schools participating in 56 clusters comprising schools in close proximity to one another that will facilitate regular interaction between them. It will involve more than 200000 learners to start off with. The strategy is aimed at obviating crippling transport costs that tends to inhibit such interaction between schools. The availability of financial resources currently, constitutes the only impediment to a more expansive programme. Our aim is to see, that all 27000 schools in our country are involved in the project.

It has to be fully funded so that no learner is prevented from participating because of personal financial constraints. This programme will require the involvement of large numbers of teachers, volunteers and even learners. More importantly, is the need to reintroduce Physical education or Human Movement into our schools. This will truly massify participation in physical activity in our society and address the low levels of participation, currently estimated to be restricted to only 25% of our population. For this, we need qualified teachers who will ensure that our young people are introduced to sport and recreation properly, trusting that it will enhance life-long participation. If, we employ only two qualified Physical Education teachers in each of our 27 000 schools in South Africa, one for boys and one for girls, we would have provided more than 54 000 job opportunities.

We obviously need Physical Education teachers in every school. But then, we need to understand the difference between Physical Education and School Sport. Of course, Madame Speaker, these best plans of “mice and men”, will come to naught if the infrastructure for launching them is not available. Of these, the appropriate facilities at schools are absolutely essential if the memorandum of agreement between Education and our self is going to mean anything. We receive hundreds, if not thousands of requests annually, from schools, clubs and communities for sport and recreation facilities and other infrastructure. As we all know; the sports facility project, “Building for Sport and Recreation”, has been transferred to the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) of the Department of Provincial and Local Government. We are not happy with the consequences thereof. Apart from the fact that we are not delivering the same number of facilities that we used to with the Building for Sport and Recreation Programme (BSRP), we perceive that the Sport and Recreation Departments in the provinces no longer feel that they own the project.

The fact that Local Authorities are no longer prioritising sport and recreation facilities compounds the problem. We are in discussion with the Department of Provincial and Local Government about getting the facility development programme back on track, because without facilities, it is impossible to realise our higher-level objectives of representivity in our sports teams at all levels.  Not to mention social cohesion. The Local Authorities must be encouraged to include sport and recreation facilities in their Integrated Development Programmes (IDPs) and I appeal to this house, Honourable Members; when you work in your constituencies, persuade local authorities to do so. This may change the current impasse. In short, the potential of the infrastructure development programme in our sector to contribute to AsgiSA and representivity is significant. Our challenge is to ensure that there is congruency between SRSA, our schools, and the local authorities with regard to sport and recreation facility provision.

We have been in touch with the Department of Housing with regard to ensuring adequate open spaces and sport and recreation facilities in their “sustainable human settlements policy”. It has always been our contention that human settlements could never be complete without adequate provision for amenities in which people, especially the youth, could adequately exercise their ”right to play”. We are happy to see, that the Department of Housing has heeded our call in this regard by rectifying this shortcoming. We are concerned, that the mandate appears to be unfunded at this point in time. Without funding for such facilities, we would not have made the desired progress. I want to single out a further initiative that emanates from the United Nations’ sport for development and peace programme that we are pursuing. Innumerable references were, and are, made to the role of sport and recreation in peace initiatives in post-conflict situations around the globe.

Madame Speaker, South Africa is proud to be involved in several post-conflict peace initiatives on the African continent but nowhere have we engaged sport to assist in any of these projects. Doing so, I am convinced, will improve our success rate considerably. Evidence from many other conflict situations, often much worse than the ones we are dealing with, attest to that potential. We are speaking with our Colleagues in the Department of Defence about the role sport can play in peacekeeping and peace building: We had a positive response and we are following up on this. The next step is to engage Foreign Affairs on the merit of sport as a “Diplomatic Tool” in peacekeeping and peace building! We will keep this house and the country informed of developments here.

Madame Speaker, to realise the benefits that can possibly accrue from our sector, we need three things; resources, resources and more resources.
What we need is:
* infrastructure organisations, programmes, facilities, equipment and kit
* human resources sufficient thereof, of good quality and with an appropriate disposition
* finance that underpins both infrastructure and human resources.

I have addressed elements of the first two but would like to conclude by referring to the third. As a Department we have the smallest budget of all national government departments. We are committing some R10 per person per year to the participation of our people in sport and recreation activities presently. R10 can never make a substantial contribution to participation rates in sport and recreation; but participation can have an impact on the budgets of many other sectors in Government. It can substantially reduce the health budget; in fact, the Department of Health has recognised the contribution that physical activity, can make. They have introduced the “Vuka South Africa, Move for your Health Programme”.

This is to highlight the contribution that being physically active can make to one’s health. The savings that we can make on the Justice bill, as with many other budgets, can be as, if not more, significant. We have always said that “a child in sport is a child out of court”. We saw the start of “child-protection week” on Monday. I want to contend, that sport, if properly organised, supervised and run, constitutes one of the best ways to ensure that our children are protected. If our children are constructively engaged in activities outside of schools there is no reason why they will or can become caught up in the influences of anti-social tendencies.

If we say all these things and we agree with it; we have to be bold and say that we must increase the budget for sport and recreation to ensure that more young people become involved in our Mass Participation Programme, our School Sport Programme, and our Club Development Programme.

We further believe that the funding that is available from the Lottery can be utilised much better and we have approached our Colleagues in the Department of Trade and Industry to facilitate this. There is an unfortunate perception, namely that sport and recreation is awash with resources. This is a false perception! A few sports federations and a few players are benefiting from the spoils that are on offer. The majority of our organisations are suffering. We have a pool of resources available from the Lottery Distribution Agency for Sport and Recreation that, in our opinion, are not being utilised optimally at this point in time. I am led to believe that funds are being distributed to sports structures that are unbeknown to some of our national federations. That cannot continue. SRSA must be able to play a role with regard to the distribution of these resources even if it means that the laws that regulate the disbursement of these funds must be amended. We are speaking with the Department of Trade and Industry about this matter presently. I trust that we will be able to resolve the matter soon. It is imperative that the resources available for sport and recreation be utilised optimally. Unfortunately, that is not the case presently.

In conclusion the legislative programme of our department will enjoy the attention of both houses soon. Prominent amongst these are the 2010 FIFA World Cup Special Measures Bill that seeks to amend all “non-money” matters that may impede on the implementation of Government guarantees that were provided in the bidding phase.

The Safety at Sport and Recreation Events Bill will be put to Cabinet for consideration shortly. This significant and substantial piece of legislation is a sequel to the 2001 Ellis Park tragedy, and is intended to minimise the risk of such a disaster occurring again in future. It also constitutes an important tool in the security arrangements for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

We also have two amendment bills: The Sport and Recreation Amendment Bill and the South African Institute for Drug-Free Sport Amendment Bill. Both bills have been passed by Cabinet and will serve in this house shortly. The former is aimed at improving the governance of our sports Federations, and the latter, to align sport with International Best Practice! We trust that we can bank on your support with our legislative programme.

We are also working closely with the Department of Social Development in promoting sport as a medium through which to engender social cohesion. In September of this year, we will be contributing to their initiative to host the “Homeless World Cup”. It is a football event in which homeless people from across the world participate in an international football tournament that not only highlights the plight of these unfortunate people, but also creates opportunities for them to emerge from their social condition. The success rate of the tournament is impressive. 38% have found regular employment, 46% have improved their housing situation, 34% have pursued education, 27% have addressed their drug dependency and 72% are continuing to participate in football. 16 participants have even been signed up with professional or semi-professional football clubs. More than 48 nations have indicated that they will participate in the event. It is expected to draw up to 100 000 spectators. The event, will take place on the Grand Parade in Cape Town.

Thank you.

Issued by: Sport and Recreation South Africa
31 May 2006
   

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