Chairperson, I would like to thank all the participants in the debate for the way they dealt with the issues - not all of them, some of them dealt with them very shabbily. I would also like to recognise the presence in the House of my homeboy, the MP from Qoyi, hon Trollip. I know he wants us to believe he is from East London, but he is from Qoyi, on the other side of Bedford. [Laughter.] "Ungumfama waphaya." [He is a farmer there.]
Let me just answer a few of the questions you have raised. I am not going to go through all of them, because some of them were answered by yourselves. For example, the question of the status of the South African Institute for Drug-free Sport, Saids, as an antidoping or a drug-free institution. It is accepted as such in South Africa, but it is also respected as such throughout the world, as well as by the World Anti-Doping Agency, WADA. As such, we try, within the limit of our budget, to provide the resources required by Saids to carry out their mandate.
Regarding Boxing South Africa, we agree with all of you. Actually, you agree with us, because most of the things you are raising, are the things we raised in the portfolio committee meeting last week. We are pleased that you have internalised our pains, Mr Lee. I am not sure where exactly this pain is, but I agree with you, it is a pain nonetheless. We are really pleased with your offer of support. By the way, the Boxing Act is not an ANC Act. It was promulgated in 1954 and you know who was in government at that time. So it is not really our Act, but we will look at what to do to make boxing the entity that it was before 1954 and get it out of the state's pocket.
Secondly, we must be very careful in the debates to not ask Ministers to do anything that would be a contravention of the law. [Interjection.] It was the DA, as early as 1987, in the debate of the constitutional amendment at the time - although I was in prison, I followed that debate. [Interjections.] Yes, or it was the Democratic Party, your ancestor. [Laughter.] Of course. [Applause.] You must not forget, the DA has been going through a metamorphosis over a period of time. [Laughter.] One of the issues they have always been consistent on is respect for the rule of law. You can't, when it suits you, want us to start ignoring the rule of law and do what seems popular for those who lack discernment. We can't break the laws of this country and we cannot even agitate against them. I respect the ruling of the Chair, but I still think Mr MacKenzie has no right to take an oath and then agitate against the laws that were passed by this House. There is something wrong with that.
Furthermore I really want to plead with the how members to not fall in the trap of selective amnesia, when members start saying that we are responsible for the absence of facilities in the rural areas - hon MacKenzie said that and he is not being truly accurate. We did not pass the Group Areas Act, nor did we pass the Separate Amenities Act. Who are the parents of these disparities? What we are trying to do is to correct that legacy, so we must be very careful. [Applause.]
As far as school sport is concerned, it has been our gospel in this House since 2004 that without getting it right at this level, we are not going to get it right on any other level. This is what we have been saying and this is what you are saying. We are very pleased that there is cohesion, at least at this level. As I said the other day, the real question here is: How do we do it? That is where the ideological differences emerge when you address the question of implementation regarding tactics to attain this strategic objective. We cannot agree on this, because we come from different ideological positions. I am sure Cope will tend to agree. [Interjections.] Well, my job is to teach them the origins and objectives of what we are trying to do, so I still have hope. [Laughter.]
School sport is the prerogative, first and foremost, of the teachers at the schools. Most of us who participated in sport started there. Without that exposure and the existence thereof, we would never have participated in sport at all. This is what the hon members must help us to achieve when we go home, not here in the Chambers - when we go home to where the schools are. That is where we must mobilise the teachers, where we must assist our communities to move towards the reorganisation of school sport, because once upon a time it was well organised.
On the question of the structure to co-ordinate school sport in this country, I am glad Ms Dudley raised this point, because there are many people lobbying, saying this, that and the other - all of them claiming to be a South African school sport association. As a matter of fact, such an organisation does not exist in this country. It does not exist. If it does indeed, I would like to know when it was formed, who its executive members are and where it operates, etc. It does not exist. What does exist, are pockets, whether they are people who have been involved with the Southern African Schools Sports Union, Sassu, in the past or people who were involved with the United School Sport Association of South Africa, Ussasa, the old structures of SA Council on Sport, Sacos, and so on.
These people - hearing the Minister saying that we must revamp the organisation of school sport, so that we can budget for something we know we can invest in through an entity that is accredited - are all jumping around, trying to claim easy victories, which Amilcar Cabral warned against.
What we are doing, Ms Dudley, is that from 17 August, at the Minmec in KwaZulu-Natal, we are kicking off a programme to mobilise teachers in their districts for the purpose of going back and doing what they should always do. I know what they are saying about being overworked - of course there is no scientific proof of that. The subjects we took and the time we spent with our teachers in the classrooms and outside on the fields, is nothing compared to what is being taught today. We are working on that and we have started rolling up our sleeves in that respect.
Regarding the Municipal Infrastructure Grant, MIG, we have raised this on a number of occasions in the House and we are still raising it today. The present Minister is making proposals, which we will bring to the portfolio committee. We don't think that they are what we want. Somebody said just now that we must bring back Building for Sport Programme - we agree. We may not call it that, because that was a Division of Revenue Act, Dora, grant, but we must bring it back so that it becomes part of the national planning and is managed according to national priorities.
Comrade Cedric is correct in saying that we have come together in many ways with respect to what is to be done. Invariably we must work together harder on the ground in order to find one another and do what has to be done.
Regarding the Ready to Govern document - I remember Frene Ginwala was the Chairperson - the member is correct in quoting from it, but that document will only be a living document when the councils and councillors who are in charge of these facilities make it happen. They are the ones who overcharge our children and our schools; they are the ones who sell the golf courses and give leases for R200, which are then sublet for R2 000.
We agree with the tiger, Mr Bhoola, that South African sport is very much alive and indeed the window opened to us by the Confederations Cup and the 2010 World Cup should not be treated like the window that was opened in 1995 when we hosted the World Cup or in 2003 when we hosted the Cricket World Cup. This window must be widened, it must not be closed after 2010, otherwise all these accolades will come to nothing. Thank you very much to everybody for participating. [Applause.]