Hon Chairperson, Deputy Minister Gert Oosthuizen, members of the National Council of Provinces, permanent delegates to the NCOP, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, sportsmen and women, fellow South Africans, it is an honour and pleasure for me to present to the NCOP our first budget policy statement of Sport and Recreation SA, immediately after we had the singular honour of presenting our Budget Vote No 20 to the National Assembly on 30 April 2011. We did so in the presence of sport administrators, coaches and the crown jewels of our country, the players themselves.
Chairperson, allow me to pay tribute to the late Director-General of Sport and Recreation, Mr Vernie Petersen, whose untimely death robbed us of a dedicated, committed and experienced civil servant. Hon members, as we said in our budget speech in the National Assembly:
Our task is to make a movement, a big movement, above all the unity of our people. We must tear down walls that stand against change, and move mountains in pursuit of our common and shared vision.
Chairperson, allow us to table the policy statement of the Department of Sport and Recreation SA after the successful hosting of the 2010 Fifa World Cup. We pay tribute to the astonishing determination, willpower, resilience and unity of purpose that was demonstrated by our people, united by the common desire to be the best. The phenomenal success of the 2010 Fifa World Cup, hosted amidst the vibrancy of Africa and the colour and diversity of South Africa, gives credence to sport as a tool with the power to inspire and unite people and create happiness.
South Africans from all walks of life joined in the celebration of our hosting of the largest event in the world. As we celebrate the successes of the World Cup, we are saddened by the untimely passing of Wendy Ramokgadi, the creator of the famous and renowned South African Diski Dance. We send our heartfelt condolences to his wife and family. May his soul rest in peace.
In June this year we will be marking the one-year anniversary of hosting the most successful World Cup on African soil by staging a monumental match between Africa Eleven and the 2010 Fifa World Cup champions, Spain. This week we will be engaging with Fifa in Zurich to finalise the modalities of this integrated event, which will also include arts and culture.
Hon members, after the successful hosting of the 2010 Fifa World Cup, there has been increasing interest in the potential of sport for inward investment and economic regeneration in communities, cities and regions. This is an element of the sports economy which we are refining as we scientifically analyse the real contribution of sport to our gross domestic product, GDP. As part of our conceptual thesis of a sports economy, sport is seen not just as games, but more as an economic imperative which contributes to economic growth, industry development and sustainable livelihoods. It has proven abilities to, among other things, bind us together as a nation, increase our sports tourism and contribute to peace and development, increase social and economic values as well as enhance healthy and fulfilling lives.
Hon members, on Friday last week in Atteridgeville, Tshwane, we reactivated our Magnificent Fridays with an exhibition game between the SA national netball team and popular personalities from sport and entertainment as part of the preparations for the World Championship in Singapore.
Ladies and gentlemen, 1 June 2011 marks 100 days to the magnificent 2011 International Rugby Board, IRB, World Cup in New Zealand. We are the defending champions, and we will remain as such, come the end of the Rugby World Cup spectacle.
Let us continue to fly the SA flag high. Let us rally behind all our national teams and wear our favourite jerseys. We did it for the Proteas, let us do it for the netball team and the Springboks as they go out to conquer the world. As an active and winning nation, South Africa should celebrate our athletes and sports luminaries who excel in the field of play in South Africa and abroad.
I would like to take this opportunity to salute and congratulate top runner Farwa Mentoor of Mitchells Plain, who became the first woman in the history of the Comrades Marathon to win her tenth gold medal, on Sunday, 29 May 2011. [Applause.] By the same token, we want to honour and respect Fanie Matshipa for finishing second in the Comrades Marathon. Let's also pay homage to the continued success of Caster Semenya for winning the 800m in the Dakar Grand Prix on Saturday, 28 May 2011. We wish her all the best at the London Diamond League as part of the preparation to defend her world championship title.
Let us also salute Sibusiso Sithole of the magnificent Rugby Sevens for scoring the match-winning try against Australia during the World IRB Sevens World Series Cup final rugby match at Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh, Scotland, on Sunday 29 May 2011. We warmly acknowledge the success of our surfing team at the junior surfing championship in Peru, South America. South Africa came second out of 27 countries, losing only to the host. These are the best results ever, beating arch rivals Australia by 200 points. South Africa got two individual silver medals for the under-18 girls and under-16 boys and a bronze for the under-18 boys.
We would also like to wish Bafana Bafana victory in their clash with Egypt in the Africa Cup of Nations qualifier on Sunday, 5 June 2011. We know that you will make us proud. Ladies and gentlemen, we equally celebrate the strides made by our legends in the field of golf, particularly the youthful Charl Schwartzel for winning the US Masters, Louis Oosthuizen for winning the Open Championship at the oldest golf course at St Andrews in Scotland, and Ernie Els for being inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame.
We wish further to send our condolences to the Wilson family and friends on the passing on of Paul Wilson, the former South African test cricketer who died in Johannesburg on Tuesday.
Chairperson, let us welcome back one of our own, Lonwabo Tsotsobe, who is scheduled to return to his motherland at the end of this week. We dare not doubt that Tsotsobe has what it takes to be the best cricketer and has the skills to succeed. We know for a fact that he is not the first son of our soil to face challenges and difficulties on foreign soil. Other South African bowlers, like Corrie van Zyl, Fanie de Villiers and Dale Steyn, also struggled with their first experience of county cricket.
The impressively strong crowd that came out to support our athletes in the Diamond League in Rome last week must be commended. Thank you, Louis van Zyl, for your continued fine start to the season with a second series victory in the 400m hurdles, leading from start to finish and winning in 47,91 seconds. We would also like to raise our flags to Mbulaeni Mulaudzi for finishing second in the same May-to-September Diamond League series in the 800m race. Congratulations! And well done to Sunette Viljoen who bagged sixth position in the javelin with a throw of 60,61 metres.
Ladies and gentlemen, on 18 May 2011 the overwhelming victory of our people reaffirmed their mandate to the ANC by voting for this glorious movement to continue to administer the vast majority of municipalities in our country. Simply put, they have also reaffirmed their resolve that the ANC-led government should continue its programme to provide sport and recreational facilities where our people live and further create child-and family- friendly parks in local municipalities which will provide safe spaces for children and their families to engage in sporting activities and generational recreation.
In 1995 the Commonwealth Heads of Government Working Group in Harare made the following observation with regard to the influence of sport on society:
It is time that the integral role which sport plays in the process of nation-building is fully recognised. Sport is an investment. It is firstly an investment in the health, vitality and productivity of one's people. It is secondly an investment in their future.
In order for the Department of Sport and Recreation to deliver on its mandate of sport development and attain its vision for an active and winning nation, sport support systems must be aligned to deliver within an integrated sport development continuum. This begins at school level, where the foundation for participation and competition has to be developed, strengthened and sustained. This will help in the identification and nurturing of talent at an early stage, and in its further development to an elite level, using scientific methods.
In the same vein, we will be launching the school sports programme before the end of June 2011 after officially signing the memorandum of understanding with the Department of Basic Education. Our fervent goal is to ensure that there is sport in each and every school in South Africa, which will culminate in a national olympics championship of school sport every year. In this pursuit, all strategic stakeholders are on board, including the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee, Sascoc, universities and trade unions.
We continue with our resolve to stabilise boxing in South Africa. We will be appointing a new board soon. Equally, we have already appointed Moffat Qithi as the new chief executive officer, CEO, of Boxing SA. We do not have two CEOs in Boxing SA; there is only one. His first brief is to convene a national boxing indaba to chart a way forward for an integrated vision of boxing in our country. We wish Mr Qithi well in his endeavours.
As part of our journey to transform sport and recreation in our country, the envisaged National Sport and Recreation Indaba will pave the way for a National Sport and Recreation Plan. This excellence reflects the values and virtues of our renewed vision of sport and recreation. This fundamental shift in paradigm is anchored in our overarching strategy, our new road map for optimal performance. The road map seeks to reposition our functional efficiencies, accelerate service delivery, enhance organisational excellence and inject new performance energy. This road map is propelled by the zeal of the department for common purpose, its zing for optimal excellence and our zip for unity of purpose, which pushes everyone forward and energises the whole organisation to wake up every day to do more for a better life for all our people.
As you would have noticed, contrary to the usual trend, what we presented in the National Assembly a few weeks ago and what we present to this House today is a budget policy statement characterised by a shrinkage from R1,2 billion in 2009-10 to R802 million in the 2011-12 financial year. Aggregated in 2007-08 financial year, it stood at R5 billion, and to date it stands at R802 million, an annualised decrease of about 40%. This downward spiral of our financial capacity will undermine the maintenance and sustainability of our legacy left by 2010. Hence we are working at approaching the National Treasury with a view to increasing our budget baseline and other expenditure programmes.
A bird's view of our budget structure will still reflect absolute resonance with our strategic priorities, as already articulated in our strategic planning document and as presented in March 2011 to the National Assembly and to the Select Committee on Education and Recreation on 25 May 2011. The national and provincial departments are acutely alive to the imperative of transformation for sports unity, social cohesion and sustenance, and the wellbeing of communities. At the same time, we call upon Parliament and the people of South Africa to join hands with us in our campaign to provide a fresh perspective on and impetus to transformation; a perspective that posits equality, unity, access and excellence at the centre of our national discourse.
The department wants to achieve inclusivity and consensus on what each federation or club's contribution is or will be towards the realisation of the objective of the national goals and priorities. In order to ensure that our actions are focused and directed, the Ministry has started a process of drawing up a transformation charter which will apply to all sports organisations. The charter will be a product of extensive and wide-ranging consultation and robust debate. This engagement process has started at a microlevel in order to formulate a draft framework and scorecard, and will be extensively discussed at the provincial and national indaba, on which the Deputy Minister will further elaborate.
Chairperson, the glaring absence of sports and recreation facilities in our schools and our communities continues to be a matter of concern. We are working together with the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs to ensure that the municipal infrastructure grant, which resides with their department, is rightly repatriated back to our department to ensure the seamless co-ordination and unlocking of the real value for money of these grants.
Similarly, we have also met with the Ministry of Human Settlements to discuss the rationalisation and possible redirection of the urban settlement development grant to Sport and Recreation SA. Both departments were tasked with the responsibility of formulating a model that will enhance the provision of sports and recreation facilities in the eight metropolitan municipalities. In the short term it will see both departments co-operating in the administration of these funds with the ultimate aim - in the long run - of having this fund also repatriated back to our department.
We are escalating our campaign to mobilise more resources from the private sector and the international donor community to support our youth camps and talent development programmes. We are sourcing additional funding. It is true that the advancement of sport and recreation development in South Africa does not only rely on public funding, but also on various stakeholders, including nongovernmental entities. Inspired by this reality, Sport and Recreation SA continues to maintain and strengthen its relations with the European Union and the German government.
The department will continue to encourage entities to apply for Lotto funding for other developmental programmes in sport and recreation. We note with concern the manner in which funds are being allocated by the Lotto distribution agency. Through our engagement with the Ministry of Trade and Industry we will also ensure that Lotto funds are disbursed equitably and directed to the areas of need in order to make an immediate impact on sport and recreation. Furthermore, the transformation charter should be completed in order to roll out institutional mechanism projects. This would include facilities, academies, sport councils and coaching.
The 2011 Budget allocates an additional R205,7 million over the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework period. The bulk of our budget went to mass participation, which includes school sport and community sport. The mass participation conditional grant has increased at an annual rate of 30% between 2007-08 and 2010-11 due to the inclusion of school sport from 2006 to 2007, and 2010 legacy projects from 2007 to 2008. Of the R502 million allocated to mass participation, R471 million consists of the conditional grant that is allocated to the provinces to roll out a community mass participation programme and the school sport programme.
The provinces will attest that this grant has given many of them a lifeline and constitutes the greater percentage of their budgets. This programme has served to increase the number of participants in sport and recreation in the most disadvantaged and neglected communities by providing equipment and attire. This has also contributed to skills development and job creation and has been a catalyst for talent edification.
We are hopeful that with this new vigour we will be able to deal with the challenges facing sport and recreation in our country, as well as repositioning the department for optimal performance. The renewed zing and zest by all to work together signifies the zeal to dislodge all elements of countertransformation in every sphere of life, and in sport in particular, and replace them with paradigms and people who are imbued with the resurgent culture of service, civic duty and voluntarism.
Ladies and gentlemen, I hereby table the Sport and Recreation SA budget policy statement in this House. I thank you. [Applause.]