Sport and Recreation Budgetary Review and Recommendation Report; Review of Boxing South Africa Report

Meeting report

Review of Boxing South Africa Report
The Chairperson opened the meeting by announcing that the Committee had received the report on Boxing South Africa from the Department, and that the Committee needed to review it and adopt the report in order to dispense with the issue. The Chairperson stated that Professor Paul Singh, Chief Executive Director of Client Support in the Department of Sport and Recreation had compiled the report and met with all affected parties. The Committee members began by reading the report in order to review it.

Mr L Suka (ANC) stated that the Committee required the author of the report to take the Committee through the report so that the Committee would have a better understanding of the document.

Mr D Lee (DA) asked when the deadline date for the report was. In addition, he agreed with Mr Suka that it would be advisable to wait until Professor Singh could appear before the Committee to answer questions that Members had regarding the issues in the report.

The Chairperson responded that there was no deadline, but that the matter had been resting with the Department for some time. He stated that Professor Singh would be before the Committee the following week during a joint Committee meeting with the Portfolio Committee on Basic Education and the Committee could call on Professor Singh to engage with the report at that time.

Committee members agreed with the proposal.

The Chairperson asked Committee member to read the report in preparation for the meeting the following week.

Consideration of the Budgetary Review and Recommendation Report (BRRR);
The Committee reviewed the draft of the Budgetary Review and Recommendation Report (BRRR) page by page and made a number of grammatical and syntax changes to phrases that needed minor rewording in order to be consistent with the findings in the Department’s Annual Report. Regarding substantive changes, Mr Lee suggested rewording the phrase ‘integration improved the vacancy rate’ to read: ‘integration increased the vacancy rate’.

The Chairperson stated that the Committee needed to make recommendations regarding the funding for facilities because the ring-fencing model in conjunction with the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs was not working.

Mr B Holomisa (UDM) stated that the Committee needed to positively acknowledge that the Department of Sports and Recreation had been getting support from the National Treasury, however the Committee needed to highlight the fact that there were huge backlogs and imbalances in the area of infrastructure. For South Africa to realise its objective of developing sport, latent talent would need to be identified and the question of facilities would need to be addressed first. The Committee would also have to invite certain key sports bodies such as rugby, soccer, cricket and netball and discuss improving facilities in phases. In doing so, the Committee would have to also “rope in” the municipalities because it was not the responsibility of the National Department to just “build stadiums all over”.

Mr Lee stated that the most important part of the report was the recommendations and the Committee needed to ensure that the recommendations were implemented. The Committee needed to have a programme in order to implement the recommendations.

Mr R Mdakane (ANC) suggested that the Committee redraft the observation regarding funding for Boxing South Africa because the Portfolio Committee was not a lobbying committee. The Committee should not take the view that Boxing South Africa was under-funded. The performance was not a result of a lack of money but as a result of governance and operational issues. He reiterated the statement that a Portfolio Committee was not a lobbying committee: it was a political committee to raise political issues that would be taken through by various Departments. It would be wrong for the Committee to lobby.

Mr Suka agreed with Mr Mdakane’s point. He pointed out that the recommendation on the Municipal Infrastructure Grant needed to be clearly written as two separate issues regarding reviewing the operation and funding model.

Mr G Mackenzie (COPE) agreed that the issues raised by Mr Suka needed to be addressed.

Mr Holomisa stated that the Committee should merely acknowledge that Boxing South Africa had problems; however the Department of Sport was addressing those problems and were in the process of resolving the issues.

The Chairperson agreed.

Mr Holomisa asked whether the municipalities that received Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) funds for the building of sports facilities and chose to utilise MIG funds for other more pressing community needs such as water, sanitation and housing received Treasury authority for the virement of these funds and if not, was it an audit query? He suggested stronger wording in this section of the report to highlight that this was done without Treasury authority.

Mr Lee agreed that stronger wording was a good idea, and he suggested that Committee members hold oversight visits to the municipalities to see what was happening on the ground and show them where they were wrong.

Mr Mdakane raised the issue that oversight had not been done if the Committee had not visited a number of the municipalities.

Mr Suka responded that 2010 was very busy because of the FIFA World Cup and for two weeks the Committee undertook visits to the various stadia to oversee the state of readiness. This consumed a lot of time in June and July and the Committee could only resume its regular work in August and September.

Mr Mackenzie reminded the members that the Committee did perform comprehensive oversight visits to various municipalities including places like Estcourt, Mthatha and rural communities where facilities beyond stadia such as police stations and airports were discussed.

The Chairperson stated that the final draft of the report needed to be completed in order for the report to be adopted.

Mr Mdakane proposed that the report be accepted, as the Committee had just reviewed the report page by page and agreed on substantive changes.

Mr Suka asked about the five priority areas of government insofar as the impact on job creation. He was concerned that this was not coming through clearly in the report. Also the report needed to reflect on how sport in South Africa fit into the broad developmental issues related to the Millennium Development Goals.

Mr Mdakane asked how the Committee infused the issue of transformation in the report.

Mr Suka stated that transformation was addressed in the recommendations.

Mr Mackenzie seconded the proposal for adoption by Mr Mdakane.

The Chairperson stated that the report was adopted with amendments.

The Chairperson stated that the Minister of Sport and Recreation had travel delays in attending the meeting and the Committee would reconvene to hear the briefing on Cricket South Africa when he was available.

The Chairperson closed the meeting.