Mpumalanga MEC for Culture, Sport and Recreation JL Mahlangu: media briefing statement at Nelspruit Lowveld Botanical Garden

Warm autumn greetings to the members of the media and departmental officials, who heeded our call and attended our first media briefing in the 2008/09 financial year where we will share with you our achievements in the previous financial year and our plans for the future.

Firstly, may I take this opportunity to congratulate our own DJ Sdunkero who has made us all of proud when he scooped the record of the year award at the South African Music Awards (SAMA) recently. DJ Sdunkero has showed that if people are dedicated in their work, nothing could stand in their way and we thank all those who have rallied behind him and urge them to continue supporting him and those that will emerge needing such support so that their music can reach all corners of the country. As the Department of Culture, Sport and Recreation, we have always supported local artists in our programmes and we will continue supporting them so that they growth benefits the province and the country at large.

We sent cultural groups to China, Swaziland, Amman Jordan, Namibia etc in the last financial year alone and recently we also sent a group to Czech Republic for freedom day celebration. In all these instances the department carries cost for performing group's travelling, food and stipend for the entire trip duration. Whenever a group visit abroad twice or more, it is because the country to be visited would have specified the group they need mainly based on its previous performance elsewhere in the world and in such cases accommodations, meals and travelling expenses are host country's responsibility. The department select these groups on rotational bases i.e. each district is given a chance.

In the soccer fraternity, we are proud to be from Mpumalanga after witnessing the performance of Mpumalanga Black Aces in the Nedbank Cup. Amazayoni, as they are affectionately known, have made history by becoming the first club in the first division to reach the finals of a Premier Soccer League (PSL) major cup, it has also made history by going to the finals without conceding a single goal against them throughout their campaign in the Nedbank Cup. The whole province will be rallying behind Amazayoni and as the department, we have supported numerous sporting codes including soccer and we will continue to extend our support to teams in the province in our quest of ensuring that Mpumalanga gets a team in the elite league. We hope that we will be receiving Amazayoni back to the province of the pioneering spirit with the Nedbank Cup on 24 May 2008.

Our department has always had a good working relationship with the media and we are looking forward to a continued relationship with all of you so that we could extend information to communities in the province and countrywide. The media plays an important role in extending information to the communities and we hope that after this media briefing, our communities will be well informed.

The amount of coverage the department enjoys in the media is reflective of the mutual relations that exist between the department and media houses, the department is committed in ensuring that information due to the media is timeously and accurately forwarded to them for the benefit of communities we serve and stakeholders we have.

Arts and Culture

As the custodians of culture in the province, we will continue to encourage people to practice their culture and we have in the previous financial year travelled all the regions of the province and ran cultural festivals where we exposed cultural talents among our people.

The regional cultural festivals were aimed at giving opportunities to upcoming artists so that they could be given opportunities and make it as professional artists.

Mpumalanga held the Zindala Zombili provincial festival at Emalahleni Civic Centre on 14 March 2008 as part of promoting culture in the province. The festival is South Africa's premier indigenous cultural festival and it is a colourful, vibrant and exciting celebration of African culture and heritage that takes place in all provinces on an annual basis. 260 Artists from the province took part in the festival and two groups, one in siSwati and the other in isiNdebele were chosen to represent Mpumalanga in the National Zindala Zombili festival that was held in Mafikeng from 4 to 7 April 2008.

Members of the media as you know that this year we are celebrating 50 years of the famous Potato Boycott that took place in the Gert Sibande District, as the department and relevant stakeholders such as the provincial Heritage Resource Agency(PHRA) and the South African Resource Agency(SAHRA), have started the process for the upgrading of Nomoya Masilela Museum (formerly known as Bethal Museum) where the statues of Govan Mbeki, Gert Sibande, Nomoya Masilela, 'Slim dick' Mtsweni and Nokuthula Simelane will be erected and the exhibitions on their lives and times be mounting in the Museum.

This project will be unveiled on Heritage Day, 24 September 2008 in Bethal. The department has also commissioned a theatrical play about the 50 years anniversary of the Potato Boycott that will travel throughout the country and possibly visit abroad too, to portray the social and political injustices and conditions people lived in then. The play will first happen in the heritage month in September 2008. Phase two of the upgrading of this museum will involve the development of the cultural precinct near the museum.

For the benefit of everyone about Gert Sibande, the "lion of the east" as he was affectionately known amongst political circles, played an important role during the struggle against apartheid and he led the famous Potato Boycott in our province and as the democratic government, we must honour this hero and others like him, who sacrificed a lot for the freedom that we enjoy today. Gert Sibande was against abuse of farm workers and stood for their rights, farm workers are still abused today and we need to all join hands and fight for what Gert Sibande fought against until we liberate all farm workers.

Also as part of our flagship programmes, we are in the process of identifying prehistory and memorial site for development and grading in terms of heritage status. For this financial year we will concentrate on the two site, namely the Ntombe battle field in Piet Retief where Anglo-Zulu war took place and reposition it as a memorial site, the other one will be the KwaSimkhulu memorial site in Emakhazeni, which is considered to have a significant status especially amongst AmaNdebele people, there we intent erecting a monument.

Still on heritage issues, may we be reminded that previously we spoke about the Makhonjwa mountain range as the possible candidate for the World Heritage Site, May I announce that the Minister for Environmental Affairs and Tourism has already written to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) requesting them to include Makhonjwa mountain range as part of the South African shortlist with intentions to declare Makhonjwa Mountain range a World Heritage Site, and updates on the progress made will be provided in due course.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I will soon lead the delegation to Mozambique to research and meet all relevant structures that will enlighten us and provide material, information and artefacts about Samora Machel and the Mozambican struggle for freedom, these information will be exhibited in the Samora Machel Museum at Mbuzini and the museum will be unveiled on the 19 October 2008. This is one of the many Heritage, Greening Mpumalanga and Tourism flagship programmes that the Social Services Cluster is rolling out.

At the same site the phase two of Samora Machel memorial site upgrading has already commenced, the area of focus will be to put paving for extra parking area, put fence to incorporate the plague area to be part of the memorial precinct, courtesy of the community of Mbuzini and their traditional leadership that gave extra land for free and then the development of the landscape. This project should be finished by October 2008.

An abridged version of the most spoken about book on Mpumalanga's History and Heritage, its translation into isiNdebele and siSwati versions and the production of a teacher's guide are in the process of finalisation by Professor Peter Delius and his team, which hopefully these materials will be available during the heritage month this year.

As the department, we have also continued with our programme of encouraging people to read through the Fundza for Fun Campaign. In the previous financial year, we build and opened six new libraries in the province namely; Leroro (Thaba Chewu municipality), Dwaarsloop Bushbuckridge municipality, Kwaggafontein (Thembisile municipality), Marapyane (Dr JS Moroka municipality), Doorkop (Steve Tshwete) and we made improvements on the Mashishini library (Thaba Chewu municipality), Piet Retief Library (Mkhondo municipality), Langeloop library (Nkomazi municipality) and the Elukwatini library (Albert Luthuli Municipality).

Realising that municipalities have different information and communication technology (ICT) systems and each municipality library system needs to interface with their general municipality system, the department decided to transfer funds to seven municipalities in the province, namely Ehlanzeni District (Mbombela and Umjindi), Gert Sibande District (Albert Luthuli and Govan Mbeki), and Nkangala District (Delmas, Dr JS Moroka and Emalahleni) to roll out the ICT library system. This process will be finalised at the end of the municipalities' financial year in June 2008.

The roll out of the ICT for libraries will continue in each financial year until all libraries in the province are ICT compatible. The battle to stock our books with relevant titles is continuing and thanks to the co-operation of our libraries. About 33 ICT support staff has been employed in 2007/08 financial year by the department to help librarians and library support staff to cope with the new technology in the library system .The project of encouraging people to write books in indigenous languages is continuing through our Fundza for Fun project.

We have organised a film and television (TV) scriptwriters workshop in partnership with the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) content hub which will commence in a months time in Nelspruit to unearth good script writers, who can tell compelling Mpumalanga stories, and to develop the capacity of locals and position the province as a destination of choice for filming. Twenty promising scriptwriters from all three regions of the province have been short-listed to attend the eight-week workshop presented by the South African Script Writing Institution and they will be guided on how to write good TV and film scripts, preferable those exploring Mpumalanga topics. The department will soon sign the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the SABC defining terms of co-operation in this film and scriptwriting project.

Members of the media, since the inception of the South African Geographic Names Council and subsequently the establishment of Provincial Geographic Names Committee, as Mpumalanga province we have so far facilitated the gazetting of 119 names, which in simple term means that 119 names have been officially changed and the consultation process is continuing throughout the province. Further 89 names have already been submitted and are awaiting the Minister's approval. The Minister of Arts and Culture, Dr Pallo Jordan will be visiting all provinces to conduct public hearings on name changes; the workshop in the province is scheduled for 11 to 12 September 2008.

We have also started in earnest with our plans to host a successful MACfest International this year and we plan to hold it over two days between 28 to 30 November 2008 in Emalahleni in the Nkangala District.

We will be appointing service providers for the festival in due course and have already gone out on tender. This festival will be one of the best and it will help to market the province and we will ensure that all logistics are taken care of. We will also include local artists in this festival so that they could also showcase their talents.

This will be one approach or strategy to put Mpumalanga back into the world map and also position it as an alternative tourist or arts and culture destination in the country and the world.

The constructions of the provincial archives building will start around June or July 2008 which is envisage to be completed in two to three years. The archives building will serve the entire province.

To ensure that at the completion of the archive building is all systems go, the department has provided training on effective archive and record management services, records management practice and records management policy to 44 municipal record managers in all three municipality districts and also assessed needs for new financial year in both departments and municipalities.

Members of the media, the other biggest challenge that we have as the province and government, which I believe is experienced by all provinces, is the level of social cohesion especially during government programmes including national days celebrations. There's no integration of communities, in almost all cases our programmes are attended predominantly by black population, yet this country belongs to all who live in it. We are looking at ways to address this social ill and we hope to ultimately get a breakthrough where all government programmes will be attended by all racial groups in our country from their diverse cultures.

Sport and Recreation

In the last financial year the, School Sport Mass Participation Programme benefited 105 schools, the targeted age groups are: Primary U/11, U/12 and U/13 and for Secondary schools U/14, U/16 and U/18.

In accelerating capacity building, 1 870 educators and volunteers were capacitated in generic coaching, sports leadership and events management.

27 720 learners participated in the School Sport Mass Participation programme and in the process receiving playing attire including sport equipment. The following codes: soccer, netball, volleyball, rugby, cricket and athletics are played in these schools, however goal-ball and chess is there mainly to cater for blind learners in Learners with Special Educational Needs (LSEN) schools. These schools were further provided with sport equipment for all the codes.

Temporary jobs were created for 105 activity co-ordinators to implement the programme at a stipend of R1 200 per month.

Another nine temporary jobs were created for the cluster co-ordinators to manage the work of activity co-ordinators at a stipend of R1 800 per month.

In this financial year 52 new schools have been added, additional four cluster co-ordinators appointed and four office administrators to deal solely with the Siyadlala mass participation programme. Out of the 52 schools in the project nine of them are LSEN schools. The intentions of this programme are to mobilise our young people to host and participate in the 2010 World cup, to promote national pride and unity, and build values of non-racism, on-sexism, anti-xenophobia and tolerance, promote physical activity and healthy lifestyles amongst others.

Equally the Siyadlala mass participation programme has grown to cover 18 hubs with 160 volunteers temporarily appointed to implement the programme at a stipend of R1 200 per month.

There have been doubting Thomases about our abilities to host the 2010 Soccer World Cup and I want to take this opportunity and give assurance to all the people of Mpumalanga that as a province we are going to meet all the requirements for the world cup and we will host games without any hiccups. The construction of the stadium is moving swiftly and we are aware of the industrial actions that were experienced in the stadium but we are happy with progress in the stadium and we are sure that the stadium will be completed by May next year.

As part of preparing for the 2010 World Cup, the province hosted one of the best Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (COSAFA) under 20 tournament with 14 countries participating. Games took place in both Mbombela and Bushbuckridge municipalities across three venues. The tournament tested our organising skills and we are looking forward to hosting tournaments of this magnitude so that we could sharpen our hosting skills.

The department also organised fan parks in all the three regions of Mpumalanga in preparation for the world cup as we all know that public viewing sites will play an important role in 2010 as it would not possible for all of us to access the stadiums during the world cup.

May I comment the initiative made by the various municipalities, particularly the Thembisile Municipality this past Saturday when they usefully piloted five fan parks during the Soweto derby between Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs.

We recently conducted a workshop for the former professional soccer players in the province, of which many where from the former Witbank Black Aces, where we wanted to forge a way forward in terms of integrating the skills of these yester-years stars in our programme and how best together we can play a role in ensuring that we transcend our soccer dreams to a realistic level of envy, in this case to have teams in the elite league.

The sport academy together with the department and German Technical Cooperation Agency (GTZ) will be piloting the street-soccer project in three municipalities, namely Nkomazi, Msukalikwa and Steve Tshwete municipalities if the project becomes a success it will then implemented in all municipalities. The aim is to conscientise people about soccer and get as many people as possible participating in soccer and create the hype prior, during and after the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

We have just successfully hosted Inter-Provincial Games which for the first time had neighbouring countries, Mozambique and Swaziland as well as Germany participating in these games which are aimed at fostering inter-governmental relations among participating provinces and neighbouring countries.

The province came second in the games and we are already looking forward to the next games which will be held in KwaZulu Natal later this year.

Through the Mpumalanga Department of Culture, Sport and Recreation, Special Olympics South Africa has launched their program for individuals with an intellectual disability in the province. About 77 new coaches drawn from special schools in the province and various hubs and clusters falling within the Department of Culture, Sport and Recreation's Siyadlala and School Sports Mass Participation programmes were trained late last year and subsequent to that Special Olympics inaugural competition in the province was held at WH De Klerk School, Emalahleni for 200 athletes.

Through the training, these coaches will be able to reach out within their schools and communities to people with an intellectual disability and offer them new sporting opportunities and an opportunity to be celebrated for their numerous abilities and courage.

Special Olympics provides year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with an intellectual disability, giving them continuing opportunities to develop physical fitness, demonstrate courage, experience joy and participate in the sharing of gifts, skills and friendship with their families, other Special Olympics athletes and the community.

In conclusion ladies and gentlemen, both hands are on deck to ensure that we speed up change in our quest to build a truly democratic and a free society and make our people's lives better through our programmes as government. Thank you for coming.

I thank you.

Issued by: Department of Culture, Sport and Recreation, Mpumalanga Provincial Government
12 May 2008