Thank you, Mr Chairman.
Die wreld sal ons met ander o bejen as ons suksesvol is. Hierdie is 'n "verkieslike toekoms" scenario; 'n pad na oorwinning. Daar is egter ook 'n pad wat lei tot nederlaag en daarvan het die departement alreeds 'n voorsmakie gekry met die Atletiek Suid-Afrika, ASA, en Caster Semenya sage. Die VF Plus moet die Minister en sy departement egter gelukwens met die uiteindelike ferm optrede teen die ASA. Dit het ons weer teruggebring op die pad na oorwinning. (Translation of Afrikaans paragraph follows.)
[Internationally we will be seen in a different way if we succeed is a "preferable future" scenario; the road to victory. However, there is also a road that leads to defeat and the department has already had a little taste of that with Athletics South Africa, ASA, and the Caster Semenya saga. The FF Plus, however, must congratulate the Minister and his department for eventually acting firmly put ASA. This once again brought us back on the road to victory.]
Unfortunately, despite your hard work so far, one can also see the signs that the road to defeatism is looming ahead and one must take cognisance of this. The FF Plus, which also wishes to see South Africa celebrate a successful 2010 Soccer World Cup and concomitant economic development, needs to warn the Minister of the following.
Firstly, the department and the Minister do not labour in isolation to other large issues. The Minister will have to impress on his colleagues in the peace and security cluster the utmost importance of creating a safer South Africa. The past month has seen a spike in extremely violent crimes, many of which have taken on the nature of political acts of violence, bringing our country to the brink of devastating conflict, whether emotionally via hate speech or physically, via the machete. One should not underestimate the extremely negative view the world currently holds of South Africa purely because we currently have very little peace and security in comparison with other countries.
Secondly, when it comes to sports development, the Minister must have regard for the goodwill shown by young Afrikaner graduates in sports sciences, who are more than willing to work within the informal settlements for sports development, but are denied this right because of affirmative action. This is not ubuntu and does nothing for social cohesion. However, I do have a database of such graduates if the Minister would be willing to make appointments from those groups.
South Africa is not doing well in terms of its international legal obligation with regard to minority rights in general. Transformation has gone too far and has become a weapon of retribution that is indeed threatening social cohesion. Therefore, the Minister can consider applying quotas to the Bafana Bafana team to accommodate minorities. That might just be the secret weapon we need to win the World Cup. I am sure Mr Komphela will agree with me on that one.
Lastly, I am worried about the way the host cities spend their fund allocations. Despite having been given appropriate funding, the City of Johannesburg, for instance, has taken budget expenditure away from social housing to pay for Fifa developments. This is a disgrace and we are going to ask Mr Blatter whether this is what he intended. We would also like to have the view of the Minister on this.
Minister, if we can attend to these problems I am sure we can take the road to victory as a country as a whole. Thank you very much.