Hon Chairperson, getting involved in sport means peace within our communities and also in the world as the former President Nelson Mandela once stated. This budget vote is more relevant as we are doing it now during this month, the Mandela Month and also as we are celebrating his birthday tomorrow. It is unfortunate that the old man has gone with his Mandela magic because we seem to be losing a lot of games now. But we can still make it possible and it is upon ourselves now that we no longer look at any magic but now we make it through hard work that we win these games when there is no longer Mandela magic.
Hon Chairperson, social cohesion and transformation are the features of the National Development Plan, NDP, So, these should be taken further and developed so that we make this country to succeed in terms of sport. Identification of talents in sport begins at schools. It is therefore important that these departments, the Departments of Basic Education, Sports and Arts and Culture come and work together.
It is through sport that we can live healthy lifestyles. The problem of obesity will be something of the past as we will be involved in sport. The introduction of sport in our schools is appreciated as it is beginning to be done. The idea of a nation building and winning nation is some of the issues that we should encourage in sport. This department has set targets that it was possible to achieve unlike other departments that would just set up big targets knowing very well that they will not achieve them. So, we appreciate the department because about 99,9% of the target has been achieved and that is great indeed.
There must be enough resources to support school sport and also the national sport. We appreciate now that these departments are now two and at least there is a bigger amount of money coming from either side. I think now something great will be done in order to develop sport in this country. There is no reason not to support this budget vote.