Regulations on safety and security at stadiums and other venues; Committee Legacy Report

Meeting report

Opening remarks

The Chairperson welcomed the Members and suggested that the Committee should start with the legacy report.  This would then be followed by consideration of the regulations on safety and security at stadiums and other venues in the Republic. The legacy report had been a living document, with amendments daily. The Chairperson said that he was glad that the draft had been circulated on time, so that every Member would have read it.

Draft Legacy Report 2009-14 (see document)
The Chairperson said that the report was actually a “handover report”, rather than a legacy report.

Ms G Tseke (ANC) noted a technical amendment on the table of contents in the report.

The Committee commented on the inconsistency in the sequential numbering of pages in some Members’ drafts.

Mr M Dikgacwi (ANC) said that even though it was the Committee’s mandate to facilitate the appointment of candidates to entities, it had never actually done that because the appointments were generally made without its involvement.  The Committee would be called in only when there were problems with the appointments. He suggested that should be looked into.

Ms Tseke said that the Committee had processed the Safety at Sport and Recreation Events Bill [B7-2009 (Sec 75)] Act 2 of 2010.  This was not reflected in the report, and she recommended that it be rectified under the 2010/11 financial year.

Ms G Sindane (ANC) said that the facilitation aspect that Mr Dikgacwi had suggested, should be put under “recommendations.”   She thought the Committee had done this when she read the report, since it had been put under the “functions of the Committee” title at that point.  Moreover, “international agreements considered” also possibly needed to be moved to “recommendations,” if that had not been done.

The Chairperson agreed that it was the Committee’s prerogative to decide what to recommend, but also cautioned that this should be limited to no more than five. 

Mr Dikgacwi referred to international agreements as well, saying that the Committee had sat with Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA) and had asked whether it was following up on the matter. Therefore, the Committee had been involved in those agreements, so it could remain where it was.

Mr G MacKenzie (COPE) reiterated Ms Tseke’s point about the year of processing of Bill [B7-2009] Act 2 of 2010, and said that the year of processing needed to be reflected in the statistics table.

The Chairperson affirmed that the content advisors needed to very specific and precise regarding the statistics in the report.

Ms Tseke said that around 2010, the Committee had had oversight trips to all the provinces, checking up on the readiness of provinces for the Soccer World Cup.   She recommended that this needed to be properly captured in that statistics table, and that the same be done for 2012/13, since the Committee had completed more or less three oversight tours.  In 2013/14, the Committee had undertaken six oversight trips, which needed proper capturing as well.

Mr Teboho Thebehae, Committee Content Advisor, said that the numbers captured in the statistics table were intended to reflect how many trips the Committee had completed each week.  Therefore, the statistics showed how many trips the Committee had done in that session of parliament, instead of the number of provinces visited. He said they had left out two groups of visits to different provinces, which would constitute two trips, while the third one would be the last trip the Committee had undertaken to the Northern Cape.

The Chairperson repeated that capturing the visits to all provinces in 2010 still needed to be reflected, and the statistics had to be accurate.

Ms Sindane said that the Committee had considered SRSA’s intervention in netball and Boxing South Africa, so that also needed rectification in that table.

Mr MacKenzie said that under oversight trips made in 2010/11, there had been many more than one trip. Proper recording was needed there as well.

Mr Dikgacwi added that the Committee had made visits in conjunction with other Committees.  He had even gone to the border posts with the Committee for Police.   He was unclear whether the Committee had considered the Combat Sports Bill, as it had never been before the Committee.

The Chairperson agreed that that Bill was still in the pipeline, and had never been presented to anyone, whether in the House or to the Committee.  

Ms Sindane said that she did not remember the Committee adopting the White Paper on Sport and Recreation for the Republic of South Africa in 2012, nor did she remember considering a ‘development of a new roadmap for sports in SA’.

The Chairperson said all that had been done before she had been seconded to the Committee.

Ms Tseke recommended a rephrasing of a sentence regarding unqualified audits that the South African Institute for Drug-free Sport (SAIDS) had received from the Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA).

Mr Dikgacwi reiterated the Committee’s sentiments that the staff needed to make sure that the report was in sequence.

Ms Sindane said she noted that the only budget referred to in the report was that of the Committee. Seeing that it did oversight over SRSA, she felt that the Committee needed to say something about the Department’s budget.  This was especially in regard to the funding that SRSA allocated to its entities, because when it had appeared before the Committee, it had been concerned with the limitations that its budget was having in its programme roll-out.

Mr Dikgacwi suggested that only certain issues needed to be flagged for inclusion in the recommendation because the Committee knew that SRSA’s budget was quite limited.   However, the Government had other priorities.

Ms Sindane said that the Committee needed to be honest about why Management Committee (MANCO) meetings were not held as frequently as desired. There had been only one invitation to a MANCO meeting, which had then been postponed. The way those issues were currently reflected was not helpful to the Committee, nor would it be helpful for the incoming one.  Those meetings were infrequent due to ineffective coordination by Members, so the Committee administrators should improve on those aspects.

The Chairperson said that could be captured by saying ‘due to the non-commitment of members’

Ms Sindane and Ms Tseke differed, saying frankness would be more constructive and that the issue could not be glossed over.   Sometimes staff members would be assigned certain tasks, but would come to the meetings without the tasks being completed.  The Committee needed to be frank in that regard, so that there could be improvement.   

The Chairperson agreed, and asked Mr Dikgacwi how he wanted the Committee to proceed.  The operation of the Committee was an internal matter for all Members to deal with.

The reason why Bafana Bafana had been beaten by Brazil recently was because the administration at SAFA was very poor.  Although the Committee had accepted that the SRSA budget was very small, it had accepted that it was sufficient, given the other competing priorities of Government.  Federations had to run their affairs in a way that they could garner sponsorships to run their own affairs, so that they would stop depending on state funding.  If the current trend continued, federations would become more badly administered, and governance would decline more as well.

Mr Dikgacwi said that at times there were issues where the Committee needed to make follow ups, and when it met with the stakeholder and the follow up was made, the Committee would then be left hanging. Therefore, he felt that the support staff needed to identify key issues and have them reflected somewhere in the report.

Mr MacKenzie said that the Committee knew that Physical Education (PE) curriculum was problematic, and that the Department of Basic Education (DBE) needed to come to the party, which it was not doing. Therefore he felt that the recommendation in the report, as it stood, was not bringing the point across well enough, as it was a matter of great urgency.

 The Chairperson said that it was the coordination between DBE and SRSA that needed to be accelerated, in terms of implementing the PE curriculum.

Ms Sindane said that the incoming Committee for Sport and Recreation would think netball performance had been the only highlight for the current Committee, whereas cricket, hockey and other sports had also improved drastically.  That needed to be reflected in the report as well. 

Mr Dikgacwi said that the staff could give Members a call when they were amending the report, as some Members watched sport avidly.

Mr MacKenzie recommended that the Lotteries Board should also be lobbied as a source of more funding for sport and recreation development.

Ms Sindane wondered where in the report the Committee could put the issue of Buffalo City misusing Legacy Funds for other purposes, instead of what they had been set aside for.   If the Committee left this matter unattended, that could set a precedent for the misuse of funds. She recommended that this should be included in the report, so that people knew they could not get away with maladministration.

The Chairperson said that would be covered under “follow-ups”, because there were a lot of other follow-ups that needed to be done. He asked for any further suggestions to be added to the report.

 Mr Dikgacwi asked who must consider the report, and when was that supposed to be done.

The Chairperson replied that it was the Committee that needed to consider the report, as the report belonged to it. He asked whether the Committee was happy with the report.

The report was adopted, with substantive and technical amendments.

Committee minutes
The minutes of 4 February, 2014, were adopted without amendments

The Chairperson suggested that the Committee deal with regulations, as the rest of the minutes were still being compiled and distributed.

Deliberations on draft regulations on safety and security at stadiums and other venues in the Republic
The Chairperson reminded the Committee that they had been sitting with the regulations for some time. The intention was to allow the Committee an opportunity to comment on contentious issues, if there were any. The regulations were meant to implement the Safety at Sport and Recreation Events Bill [B7-2009 (Sec 75)] Act 2 of 2010. The executive generally drove regulations, which were about streamlining the implementation plan for the particular Act. The executive had been mandated that it should always involve the Committee when it moved regulations to implement Acts, so that the Committee could enrich them or point out disputes.  The Committee just needed to see whether there were any critical areas that would possibly be in conflict with the Act. 

Mr Dikgacwi said the he was satisfied with the regulations.   Only the implementation of the Act was problematic, because immediately after the Act had been passed, something contrary to it had happened in Stellenbosch. Therefore, SRSA needed to make sure that it monitored the implementation of the Act. 

Ms M Dube (ANC) said the only complaint she had, was when things like the regulations were presented in the format they were in, and then used somewhere else. She was left wondering what the impact of those regulations had been.

The Chairperson said that the main purpose of checking on regulations was to make sure that they did not become an Act themselves. It was to guard against the introduction of another Act, through regulations. Acts needed to be only a few pages, so that regulations could be many pages.

Seeing that there were no issues with the regulations, the Committee seemed to be happy with them.  The only concern was that the Act needed to be speedily implemented.

Committee minutes
The minutes of 11 February, 2014, were adopted without amendments.

When the Committee considered the minutes of 18 February, 2014, Ms Sindane said that the minutes of the 11 of February, where Cricket SA (CSA) had briefed the Committee, were silent -- as if there had been no engagement. She asked that the minutes should reflect engagements between the Committee and presenters.

The Chairperson directed Ms Sindane to the minutes of 18 February, where her complaint had been dealt with.

 The minutes were adopted without amendments.

Closing remarks

The Chairperson then summarised what had been concluded at the meeting.

Mr Dikgacwi, as the Committee whip, made his closing remarks and thanked the Committee and support staff for the cooperation they had provided.

Mr Mackenzie did as Mr Dikgacwi had just done, thanking everyone for their cooperation and the work the Committee had produced. He then handed out Natal Sharks official supporters’ T-shirts to the Committee and support staff.

The Chairperson made the final closing remarks, thanking the media as well for its unbiased coverage of events at meetings.

The meeting was adjourned.