Transformation in Sport: Departmental briefing

Meeting report

Opening remarks

The Chairperson welcomed and greeted everyone and noted that the Director General (DG), Mr Alec Moemi, would be called to go and brief Cabinet on the work of Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA). She asked that the agenda be amended so that the DG could present first.

The committee supported the amended agenda

Transformation Charter and Eminent Persons Group (EPG) report on sport transformation

Mr Moemi said part of SRSA’s mandate going into the sports indaba had been to review the entire sports landscape in the country. Among the transversal issues affecting the whole National Sports and Recreation Plan (NSRP) was the issue of transformation in sport. Following the plan, the Transformation Charter, as well as its scorecard, had then been infused into the plan and adopted as part of that one document. In finalising the plan, SRSA had consulted almost all stakeholders and was confident that it had a true reflection of the sport sector, especially the sport bodies and business.

A timeframe had been set for the implementation of the plan and to facilitate it, the SRSA had had to undertake several processes, one of which had been to amend the regulations covering grant funding for sport bodies, and to have a new framework that would be used going forward. The logic had been that money should follow the function, and that good behaviour needed rewarding. Deviant behaviour was not in line with the NSRP, and would have penalties. SRSA planned to link the funding to transformation outcomes and objectives so that the grant framework would achieve that.

Of the 84 recognised sport bodies, only two had not signed up to the grant framework since its implementation. The challenge was that those two bodies were under administration, and they were within the SA Sports Association for the Physically Disabled (SASAPD). Historically there had been two bodies for whites and blacks, which were then in a process of merging at the insistence of SRSA. In that regard, the merger had been artificial in that they had remained separate, with two nominees from each structure’s executive committee to form a four member super structure. That superstructure was to collect the funding and split it in half so the two bodies would then go their separate ways. Because of that, SRSA had had to say that SASAPD had to regularise its structures so that it matched completely at all levels so that there could be a seamless body looking after the interests of all persons with disabilities in sport. Moreover SRSA wanted SASAPD to reposition itself as a confederation, as there were many other smaller sport bodies within that structure.

All other bodies had voluntarily signed up, though the image created was one of government coercing sport bodies to transform. This was not true, as everyone had voluntarily contributed towards the writing of the charter and scorecard. There had been no coercion yet, as there had been cooperation right through up until that stage.

Transformation Charter

The DG said SRSA had learnt that the moral justification for transformation had been ineffective, as only counting how many black faces there were on the field was quite counterproductive. It was not correct to have a demographically representative, unprofessional, non-winning team from an irregularly administrated sporting body with challenges in accessing that sport. Therefore SRSA had added an additional six dimensions to the Charter, which then spoke to a multi-dimensional approach. This approach had identified that the biggest challenge facing SA sport was not funding. Though the resources were not adequate, the sector had to start doing much more with what it already had before asking for more money. From that perspective, SRSA felt that the six dimensions assisted greatly in terms of widening the scope for the assessment that needed to be done. 

Eminent Persons Group (EPG) pilot study 2013

The purpose of the pilot had been to check whether it was possible to apply the Transformation Charter in SA sport, and to also look at the possibility of SRSA being able to use the scorecard effectively, and to check whether the guidelines and questionnaires were useful.

The scorecard had since been able to be customised across all federations where, on some key issues for team codes as well as individually played sports, SRSA had had to vary the approach in terms of assessments.

The scorecard had been finalised, so SRSA’s approach was currently strategic instead of moralistic, because if sport did not transform there would not be competitive teams in the next 20 years.

When SRSA concluded that the target for generic black representation in sporting bodies had to increase to 60%, organisations like Solidarity, Freedom Front Plus and Afriforum had taken the Department to court with the argument that transformation in sport had been racism in reverse. SRSA had alternatively argued that the constitution allowed for positive discrimination, where such discrimination sought to bring about redress for past imbalances. Following that, those organisations had relied on the South African Police Services’ (SAPS) case of promotion within SAPS ranks, and once that case had been thrown out of the constitutional court, they then intended to take SRSA to the Court of Arbitration of Sport in Switzerland, to oppose transformation in sport.

The DG was then called away to support the Minister at a Cabinet briefing.

Dr Bernadus van der Spuy, Chief Director: Strategic Support, SRSA, then took over, and said that unfortunately much of the information that SRSA received from federations regarding progress with transformation and the scorecard was unverifiable, and the Department was planning on how to assist federations with collecting and submitting quality usable data.

The Chairperson asked the committee whether it would prefer to proceed with all the presentations so that there could be a discussion session afterwards.

Mr D Bergman (DA) commented that he would prefer to deal with each presentation individually.

Ms D Manana (ANC) said that she preferred that all the presentations be concluded once off as Members were taking notes for possible questions.

Ms B Abrahams (ANC) supported Ms Manana’s proposal as she felt that it would be more time consuming to deal individually with each presentation.

Mr M Filtane (UDM) concurred with Mr Bergman, because transformation was the biggest challenge in sport currently.

Mr S Malatsi (DA) also concurred with Mr Bergman that given the amount of time that the transformation topic would take, it would be best to deal with the presentations individually.

Mr Bergman maintained that in terms of the Transformation Charter, the country was looking in the wrong places. The transformation failures were actually a service delivery failure and not a specific problem from federations. The Department of Basic Education (DBE) needed its schools to ensure that there were sports, and that participation in sports was increased. SRSA had to ensure that there were enough quality coaches that could assist. Moreover, SRSA had to ensure that there were facilities at the local level, and then transformation surely would occur.

Mr Bergman said he had had a meeting with the South African Gymnastics Federation (SAGF), and it and Cricket SA (CSA) had one of the highest transformation scores. The secret there had not been to look at either side in terms of the premier team and the school teams, but to actually focus on one side of the spectrum. This meant the focus would be either on premier cricket or development cricket in schools and clubs or tertiary institutions. Both federations had decided to work on everything at the development stages of both codes and transformation had occurred organically. Transformation in terms of players on the field seemed to be well under way, but when it came to coaches and referees, there was just red all over. That situation was untenable.

It was disappointing that federations were simply not partaking in the transformation agenda. If federations gave SRSA unverifiable data samples, that said something about their integrity. It was somewhat disrespectful for those federations to give the EPG such data.

A novel way of looking at sport representivity was to not base it on national demographics, but rather on the people interested in sport. For example, if soccer had 98% black participation and only 2% white, that did not mean that black soccer players should be fired so that there could be more white soccer players. One would be taking into account the interests of the soccer watching nation and making it representative of the national demographics. CSA was doing that naturally at this stage as it was looking at how many cricket watching people of the nation there were, so that the representation would then be based on that. The pay-off line was for each federation to try and increase interest in its code so that the representation would be reflected more reliably. He commended CSA and SAGF for being able to organically achieve the transformation targets. The Committee was looking forward to seeing all the other federations following suit organically, so that competition and the interest of the nation to watch and support sport would not be stifled.

The Chairperson asked Members to do as Mr Bergman had done and relate their understanding of what transformation meant to each of them.

Mr S Ralegoma (ANC) said that apartheid had done social engineering so that even the thinking of the nation had been changed somehow, since it had pervaded every facet of the daily life of all citizens. It was important that the Committee always recognised that the country was in the current state because of that legacy of apartheid. It was a serious oversight to say that transformation was being failed through a lack of service delivery, because the challenge of redress was quite enormous. His sentiment was that SRSA was on the right path, as it was trying to achieve more with the little that it had. That translated to the question of how SRSA could ensure that talented youngsters, wherever they were, could start benefiting from the schools that had been engineered to exclusively benefit particular groups. Those well-equipped schools still remained exclusive.

The federations in 2012 had agreed on the scorecard, but as a result of the same engineering only coloureds and Indians were benefiting in rugby and cricket. It could not be said that black Africans were not interested in those codes.

The SRSA approach raised key points, which were that transformation needed not be morally justified but be strategic instead, as it made sense to develop the majority group within the populace to ensure competitiveness in the long term. The starting point could not be providing more resources, for transformation to happen. If the federations were doing well, then the Committee needed to applaud them, but also had to persuade them to do what the Committee was saying. This had been an anomaly that had not been attended to previously, because there had been no real transformation in soccer and rugby.

The Committee had to ensure that the resources to drive transformation were there as well. It also had to unblock the blockages that were created by certain schools’ governing bodies so that school sport could move ahead.

Ms Manana said that the transformation that the Committee was talking about was not really that of colour, but that of access to sport in rural areas. She was not discounting urban areas, however. Though the EPG was assisting with monitoring, she was concerned over the gender spread in the makeup of that commission.

Mr Filtane said that he would start by bemoaning the absence of both the Minister and his deputy, especially when the Committee was deliberating on the issue of transformation. Moreover the DG, as the administrative head, had also been pulled out of the meeting. He wanted his complaint on record.

His understanding of transformation was that it was the creation of an environment in which the demographics of the country would be reflected competitively across all the team sports in the country. Missing from the recommendations of the EPG report was the fact the EPG had not critically defined the role of the initiative that the previously disadvantaged sportsmen could play in transformation, as it seemed that the SRSA seemed to be placing those sportsmen in the same category as social welfare recipients. The addition, or utility, of former and present sportsmen in the transformation agenda would cover the competitiveness to which he had alluded. Sportspersons had to raise their hands and say they wanted to play, so that SRSA would be assisting people showing initiative. If the Committee had tracked the development of cricket in the West Indies, it would be surprised at the conditions under which that country had developed such competitiveness.

There had been a female rugby athlete that had died from injuries during Mr Filtane’s days as the president of the Transkei Rugby Football Union. That had had a threatening effect on female participation in that sport, and how much cover there was for women in that sport needed to be looked into.

What specific actions were being sought with the recommendation to establish a strategic transformation fund?

Could SRSA elaborate on the incentives and punitive measures it sought to apply on federations for complying or not complying with the Transformation Charter, because when it came to the Springboks there had to come a time when the country said if transformation was not a priority, then winning would also not be prioritized?

The Chairperson requested members to please keep their emotions in check, as Mr Filtane seemed to have been affected very negatively by the Springbok’s loss to Ireland the previous Saturday.

Mr Malatsi said that he had thought that the EPG would have been presenting its own report, because the situation then was that even the DG had been pulled out of the meeting, which had limited the engagement Members would have had.

The report itself bemoaned the quality of information from federations regarding transformation. His concern was whether the interventions based on that skewed data had been sufficient, given that the data supplied -- or its absence -- had been mentioned throughout the report. Moreover he wanted to know what Africanisation versus transformation spoke to, as that sentiment threaded the report as well. For him, transformation was about redress, creating opportunities for individuals or groups who had been previously excluded from sport either through design or some form of isolation. Facilities were important in that regard, since it was difficult to participate in any sport if there were no facilities.

In terms of coaching, none of the federations could submit information on the demographics of their coaches. That went back to the discussion that the Committee had been having with both the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) and SRSA on the supposed training that was supposed to have been rolled out for teachers in school sport, where SASCOC denied that it had failed to deliver on that mandate, and that needed to be clarified.

The report was also silent on female athletes and how young females were to be encouraged to start participating in sport as a career instead of recreation, since the landscape was not appealing enough for them in the same way it was attractive for males. It was disheartening that soccer, cricket and rugby also did not have data on female participation as well. Even better than identifying the challenges for transformation would have been a set of interventions which the EPG or SRSA had planned to deal specifically with gender under-representivity in the three big codes. The current interventions were not revolutionising sport for it to be seen as a career option across the board, instead of it being for males only.

At face value, the cricket model was acceptable. However, what happened at provincial level was that a quick fix solution was created for premier access, whereas massive ground roots participation was lacking, which correlated to the lack of sports facilities.

What would be the role of the EPG going forward? Would it be integrated into SRSA so that there would be a unit tracking transformation? For how long would be functional?

The Chairperson appreciated Mr Malatsi’s critique and input, and encouraged the Committee to do similarly. Regarding the Minister and his deputy, those officials came to the Committee by invitation, whereas the DG was the accounting officer. The Committee staff had just informed her that the Minister had not been invited. She further explained the absence of those officials, and asked the Committee to express when it would like those officials to be present.

Mr P Moteka (EFF) said that transformation was the most important theme in sport. The country was where it was because of an ongoing status quo, and to that extent the political leadership of SRSA needed to have been part of the meeting on that day. Apartheid had excluded Africans from participating in sports, but the country from 1994 had had the responsibility to change that situation. The report was admitting that there had been fruitless attempts to transform sport since that time, since quotas had benefited only certain groups of the population, and not the majority. Radical change had to stop being a slogan so that the rural and disadvantaged could physically see and touch the benefits of democracy. They had to feature in management, coaching, refereeing and as players on the field for transformation to be felt, because if they did not manage, then the decision makers would continue doing what they had been doing.

The lack of facilities was the biggest constraint to transformation. The starting point was facilities and then equipment. The Committee was aware of the lack of resources, but if SRSA prioritised provinces and towns selectively, then there would be progress, instead of SRSA saying it was going to use apartheid infrastructure in former white schools, since it had failed to build any facilities during the past 20 years. There had to be a programme of action (POA) for a roll-out of facilities for both rural areas and peripheral settlements in urban areas. Sending talented black learners to sport-focused schools would not assist at all with transformation, as that was simply not enough. That debate had to carried forward to a different day, with the Minister present as well, as the issues would not be addressed entirely at this meeting. SRSA had to develop a POA with timeframes for addressing a facilities roll out in rural schools and disadvantaged communities in urban areas.

The Chairperson reiterated that the administrators there were quite adequate to deal with the Committee’s enquiries.

Mr S Mmusi (ANC) reiterated the Chairperson’s view that the political head of the SRSA came to the Committee by invitation. He believed in a country that displayed the demographics of its nation in sport, and he found it problematic that the minority were dominant in rugby after 20 years of democracy. SRSA was trying to address that very problem. Coming to the Committee and finding colleagues trying to use service delivery as the reason behind the failure in transforming sport was irrational, as sport was related to all sectors of government and not only the public service and public works. The Committee had to allow SRSA’s plan on transformation to unfold before criticising it first.

The country could not be compared to the West Indies, as it had better facilities and resources. There had indeed been people of colour that had excelled in sport during the apartheid era, but the conditions and limitations under which they had been performing had not been right. For that reason, the Committee had to allow SRSA to have schools, equipment and facilities shared equitably among the population, even if they had been built by the apartheid government.  

The Chairperson noted that everything was being done according to budget. The government was giving provinces 15% of the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) for sport facilities and therefore the Committee had to see how it could infuse that into the work in progress of the EPG. SRSA had apologised for the absence of the entire EPG. She did not know whether the staff had invited them, and if the Committee was not satisfied with SRSA’s responses on the report, then it could invite the EPG.

She suggested that the Committee needed to proceed to other presentations. Since Mr Moteka had also alluded to future engagements on transformation, the Committee would possibly have to deal with follow-up questions on that future date as well.

SRSA Response

Dr Van der Spuy said there was a process that was being undertaken to review and update the Charter and scorecard following the past two years of their implementation, seeing that there remained gaps that still needed filling.

Though service delivery was important for the SRSA, because transformation was a key component in SRSA’s drive, it had to ensure that its service delivery was aimed at addressing transformation issues. Indeed, SRSA had realised from the information received after the first round of implementation, that there were problems with coaches, referees and administration in terms of transformation, and it needed to look holistically at that agenda. The data that came in enabled SRSA to identify specific areas that it needed to focus on in terms of proceeding with the process of transformation. Moreover, the quality of data also affected SRSA’s ability to take informed decisions. It had also realised, after the first phase of implementing the scorecard with the Charter, that many of the federations did not keep a record of the numbers of their clubs, coaches and referees, all the way down to the districts. The belief then was that by enforcing the scorecard and the Charter, the federations would realise that they needed to have systems that would enable them to report correctly on their status.

He agreed with Mr Ralegoma’s summation of SRSA’s approach to transformation. The results of the first round of implementation coming to the SRSA had to guide the interventions that it would need to implement to take the transformation process forward. SRSA supported his comment on schools sport which was a priority in the Department’s agenda.

SRSA indeed prioritised the rural areas, and its programmes could attest to that.  Ms Onke Mjo, SRSA Chief Director, would elaborate further on the enablers that SRSA was putting in place to address issues around that.

Funding was important for the implementation of the Charter, as many of the actions that needed to be taken required funding. To that extent, SRSA was looking into securing additional funding to accelerate the transformation agenda. For example, both the Charter and scorecard had been built into the NSRP so that the funding that would sought from the private sector would not only be for only high profile events and sports, but even for mass participation events. Those were, of course, ongoing processes along with the SRSA’s concerted efforts to get a better allocation from the budget vote from National Treasury (NT), as that would enable it to do more.

On punitive measures and incentives, the results from the transformation scorecard would have an impact on the financial allocation of SRSA to the federations. For federations excelling at compliance, there would be financial rewards whilst those that were still failing to fulfil all the criteria would feel it in their pockets.

Dr Van der Spuy said that SRSA was looking into how it could assist federations to set up proper record-keeping mechanisms so that they could supply the Department with useful data. SRSA concurred that the training of coaches, referees and facilities roll-out were all important, as well as the welfare of female athletes.

The EPG had been appointed for a period of five years, and Ms Mjo would also elaborate on the future operations of that commission.

Critically, with the facilities issue that Mr Moteka had raised, the Committee could probably consider inviting SRSA to come and present the facilities plan in the future, since SRSA had started a facilities audit to develop some kind of database on available facilities in SA. However, SRSA would not be able to do much in that regard if it was not successful in securing the consolidated 15% MIG from the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA). With its current budget it could only advocate for a facilities roll-out within municipalities, but SRSA’s approach would certainly change if COGTA were to ever relinquish the MIG to SRSA. The important question, if the MIG were to be secured, would be what to build and where to build it. This would have to be guided by the facilities plan, whose first draft had already been prepared by the Department.

Ms Mjo said that the Department had had four workshops to date after the release of the EPG report, with the five federations that had been part of the pilot study. The federations had since submitted POAs for dealing with the outcomes of the report, which included proper data sheets from federations that had had outstanding submissions.

The EPG had three officials that were based in the DG’s office that were continuing the group’s work on its report and Transformation Charter reports. The next phase of the study extended assessment to the 15 other priority sport codes, apart from the five already done.

In 2012, SRSA had commissioned an audit of schools’ sport facilities and their capacity in terms of teachers being able to coach and administer sport. The audit had assisted SRSA in determining which schools needed intervention the most. Delivery of sports equipment and capacity building programmes had been rolled out for those prioritised schools.

An important aspect to making any change was SRSA’s provision of enablers. Over and above the facilities programme, there were four initiatives that were responding to the EPG report. These were the school sport programme, which focused on facilities and equipment, sport focus schools, sport structures and the development of teachers.

Regarding club development and SRSA programmes, she would be talking to both in her outstanding presentation on the pilot study, and how it was responding to the EPG report.

There had been two frameworks developed in regard to SRSA’s funding model and how it would respond to the EPG findings and requirements. There was a National Federations (NFs) and attendant structures funding framework which ring-fenced specific amounts of money to different programmes focused on transformation, sport development and schools that were responding to the different areas of transformation, including participation and inclusion of women in sport. There was a new funding model which assessed the funding that was being allocated to federations. The grant framework for provinces was also aligned to respond to the NSRP, as well as the EPG report.

Discussion

Mr Mmusi asked whether the SRSA had plans to defend itself against organisations threatening it with legislative challenges because of the transformation agenda.

 

Mr Filtane said that he hoped that Ms Mjo’s presentation would cover his question on female participation in sport, especially at school level, as there was very little happening there.

Mr Malatsi said that what was missing in the statistic that 84% of under-18 year olds in SA were African black, was that since that was a generic group, what percentage of black African SA under-18s actually participated in sport currently, and across which codes?

Mr Bergman said that his service delivery statement had been misunderstood, but he still stood by it. He explained that even the South African Football Association’s (SAFA’s) president had mentioned that there were soccer schools and rugby schools in SA. If one flew over schools around SA, one could differentiate between the two types of schools -- the soccer schools would have no windows, no playing fields and no transport, whereas the rugby schools would have all those things. That was the transformation that had to occur. He understood Mr Ralegoma’s point on the lack of resources, but he was talking to the joint effort that had to come from DBE and SRSA, the former focusing on prioritising sport in schools -- attracting and raising interest in sport -- and the latter focusing on the provision of coaching and officiating of sport. The country had to move away from that fear-inducing quota system so transformation could occur organically, because the status quo was that the Charter had been signed in 2011, and three years later he felt that there had been enough talk and that it was time for action.  

During the Committee’s oversight he wanted to see the interventions reported on at the sport-focus schools, because it was illogical to give rugby balls to schools that did not have playing fields. The country had to ensure there were facilities and proper officials such as coaches, and therefore it should never be misconstrued that his views on transformation and service delivery in sport meant anything that what he had just explained.

Ms Abrahams commented that the best facilities without attitudinal change would not make a difference in terms of transformation, as certain people wanted change but were unwilling to change themselves. Wherever there were functional facilities in schools, whether in traditional cricket or rugby schools, those had to be shared equally among the populace without chastising them for having been built during apartheid. It would be useless to duplicate and recreate anew what was already working, because the country was still condemning everything that had been created during apartheid. Recreation had to be prioritised at primary school level as well, as it was already too late by secondary school level.

Dr Van der Spuy replied that SRSA would not be derailed from its approach on transformation, and no threats would make it abandon the transformation agenda.

The 84% Mr Malatsi had referred to were readily available population statistics, but SRSA did not know how many of those black African under-18 year olds participated in sport. There were figures from research done by BMI a few years ago which were outdated. This was why the Department believed the Charter and scorecard study would enable it to provide the Committee with updated figures for participation numbers.

Ms Mjo said that the 16 priority codes at SRSA spoke to female participation as well, and the school sport programmes included female learner participation in terms of age specifics, enablers and female teacher training as coaches in all the different codes available. The codes that had been chosen for the pilot had been chosen specifically to look at gender representivity and learners with disabilities, to ensure inclusivity.

SRSA Second Quarterly report for 2014/15 financial year

Dr Van der Spuy said if the Committee looked at the achievements against targets not achieved for the second quarter, the report could give the impression that all had not been well. He would try and contextualise that information, however. SRSA was not too concerned about whether it could turn things around and correct those issues. In the past, SRSA had had a category that monitored the progress of implementing partially achieved targets, but it had done away with that. For example, if SRSA had had to train 200 people where only 180 had been trained, that would have been a partially achieved target. Currently if the target was still 200 and only 199 had been trained, SRSA reported that as not achieved, which then forced the units to go all the way, and not 50%. The other issue was that some of the unachieved targets had no evidence to show that they had been done, even though the senior management was aware that they had been done.  The stricter measures that had been put in place had enabled the SRSA to receive a clean audit for the first time the previous financial year, in terms of performance information.

Programme 1 Administration

When looking at the indicators in the Annual Performance Plan (APP), the Committee had to realise that that was at a higher level, because when SRSA had submitted in its APP and Strategic Plan (SP) to the Presidency and NT in 2013, those departments had indicated that some of the targets had to go to the operational plans (OP), as the issues were operational. Therefore the committee would find that the SRSA had reduced the number of the indicators in the APP, as the others had gone to the OP. During the SRSA quarterly status review meetings, it had looked at progress in achieving all of its targets.

Programme 3: WINNING NATION

SRSA had a challenge with the scientific support programmes and would possibly have to ask officially to have that target revised, since it had decided not to continue with that target. As long as that target remained in the quarterly reports, SRSA would always be behind with it.

Dr Van der Spuy believed that the third quarter report would show a dramatic change in the performance, and that the final report would certainly show differently.

Progress report on the filling of posts

Ms Phumeza Lubanga, Chief Audit Executive, SRSA, said SRSA continued to experience a high vacancy rate as a result of its employees being poached by other state departments. Certainly the SRSA would continue striving to expedite the process of filling the vacant posts.

SRSA Sport Club System pilot report

Ms Mjo said since most of the clubs were not affiliated to relevant associations, they were outside the mainstream scope of the pilot, even though they were in existence and were participating. Franchise agreements had been sent to all provinces, although the pilot was running in two provinces, so that everyone could be aware of the toolkit, programmes and the approach that SRSA was using in developing the four categories according to which clubs would be classified. Since there were Non-Profit Organisations (NPOs) running clubs in the provinces, SRSA had to date physically gone to provinces to verify that that was indeed happening. Monitoring of the whole process in the form of visits by SRSA officials was ongoing in the two provinces where the pilot was being rolled out.

The DG said that though Ms Mjo had painted a particular picture of the pilot, there was an alternative image to that process. The truth was that there was a huge challenge in club development in SA. SRSA had realised that there was a crisis in club development, which was why it had opted for pilot study. For 18 years, the country had invested millions of rands into clubs through the provinces, and sometimes directly, with very little to show for it. SRSA bought equipment for the clubs which would be given to unregistered, but owned clubs, and the government had treated even well-run clubs in the same way as those random collections of individuals.

After the indaba, SRSA had acknowledged that there really were no clubs in SA apart from premier league clubs, which were not the same thing as Makurung Football Club, and therefore they could not be treated the same. The kind of support that Orlando Pirates or Black Leopards FCs would want from SRSA was not the same as what a start-up club would want. Would it be proper to give a start-up club that had been established a week ago, money from the start? SRSA had realised that it needed a differentiated approach, where clubs had to be treated accordingly. Start-ups needed assistance with registration, writing up a constitution, electing proper leadership, accountability, governance structures to be put in place and assistance with registration of the children it would be working with. It had to keep records. The parents of the children had to sign up for the start-up and all that had to have been going on for a significant period of time before the start-up could be given equipment. Moreover, municipalities struggled with finalising rosters about who played where and when, because they were all dealing with non-legal entities and could not enter into long term agreements about usage of facilities.

SRSA had had to work with UK sport to write up a club development manual on how to run a club and where to start. It had to decide how to grade and classify the system for clubs in a standardized manner across the country, and this had taken SRSA some time to finalise.

The reason SRSA had chosen the franchise model was because it had been used successfully in New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. However, that model differed from what SRSA was trying to do, in that the codes or federations were the actual franchisors in those countries. There, they owned the franchises which they sold to Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) to whom the parents would pay for their children’s participation. That approach would not work in SA. The state was trying to be the franchisor, where it owned all the franchises in the different codes and paid NGOs to run those franchises if and when they raised their hands.

Very few NFs had the necessary footprint or capacity across the country to run clubs. Even the South African Rugby Union (SARU), which was generally perceived to be strong, did not really run clubs. SARU placed the responsibility on provincial unions, resulting in a self-regulating system. That was the reason SRSA had chosen NGOs to run the franchises.

The theory behind the approach was good, but SRSA honestly doubted whether the two provinces running the pilot had the capacity to be franchisors. eThekwini SRSA in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) stood a better chance, but registering a club was one thing -- sustaining a club, making sure it played regularly and that there was a full time coach, was a different ball game. SRSA was currently auditing the two provinces since it had given them the concept to run with.

It had been decided that if there were 100 clubs in eThekwini, then SRSA had to know the different grades. How many clubs were intermediate, how many were start-ups and how many were excellence clubs amongst that 100? Moreover, SRSA had to determine whether those clubs were progressing or declining, and what type of support they had received.

For the other seven provinces, the status quo would have to remain unfortunately, but they were being updated over what was happening with the pilot.

SRSA’s projections for the club development programme were that for each year going forward, it would require R89 million to run the programme. SRSA had only about R12 million of the R89 million it needed in 2014 to run clubs across all nine provinces. Essentially, there was no money for club development in SA but the pilot was seeking to prove whether the model could work or not in SA and the DG was pleading that the Committee should not lament the non-existence of club development, despite the situation he had just spoken about. If that model worked, then SRSA would have a strong case to try and convince National Treasury (NT) to fund that model, but he felt that going to NT and asking for more money when there was no real working system -- for more money to continue doing the same as had been done for the past 18 years -- would be fruitless. Though the SRSA had put a lot of theory, money and machinery into piloting the new model, there remained capacity constraints and resources to deliver the new system.

As the DG had indicated, the pilot was longitudinal and for an SRSA official to know that it worked, yesterday’s start-up had to survive for at least six months before graduating it to the next level, where it would be supported with bookkeeping, fundraising and business proposal training for sponsorship sourcing. That all would take time and SRSA had projected that the study would take five years. It would be evaluated annually to see if there was progress and what challenges were blocking progress, but at the end of the five years there had to be a full report and a total audit of everything that would have occurred.

From the emerging results of using one rural and one urban node in Mopani, Limpopo, there were only 25 clubs that had received an equal share of money, but there still remained too many barriers to participation. One was that children had longer distances to walk to get to the grounds or the club facility. Competing was a challenge as well. Capacity and facilities were all challenges, but in eThekwini overnight they had managed to register 100 clubs. It still remained to be seen how many would ever become clubs of excellence, and the Committee had to look at the study longitudinally.

Discussion

The Chairperson said the Committee had the opportunity to deliberate on all the presentations that had been presented thus far and the clarification that the DG had given on the sport club system pilot. She had been to eleven schools between 7 and 10 November, distributing sports kit and equipment, and that even that equipment was quite limited in terms of conditions, because she had had to leave some of it with the principal or the School Governing Body (SGB). More concerning was that the pilot would be taking so long, because the Committee Members were thinking about how they could assist individual clubs which did not have kit or grounds in their constituencies. 

She pleaded with Members to please share the information with their constituents, especially those involved in sport, because the provincial SRSA acted independently of the Committee when doing their own oversight. Members had to share with the districts the work of the SRSA in terms of the pilot and to check whether the clubs were constituted properly. Certainly the Committee would have to get SRSA to come again and do a thorough briefing on the club development programme so that the day the pilot moved to provinces that Members lived in, they would have already laid the ground in certain aspects.

Mr Moteka said that the SRSA had failed in its second quarter performance for the year 2014/15 as attested to by its seven out of 16 targets achieved, leaving nine unachieved. He was happy to hear that SRSA had set itself a deadline by which its vacancies would be filled. On the club system pilot, he asked why eThekwini would have registered as many as 414 football clubs when SRSA was lamenting the unavailability of resources. The distribution for football clubs could have at least included two rural nodes if SRSA had sufficient funds to register 414 clubs in eThekwini. If the same number as that of Mopani had been used, the study could have been carried out in two rural and two urban nodes.

Since the study was longitudinal, only two regions were going to benefit and the Committee’s lament for facilities and equipment in rural areas, where there had never been any before, was justified and the challenge was then for the Committee to do oversight in those areas included in the pilot. The Members had to take responsibility for their constituencies and not to wait for Minister Fikile Mbalula to come to their region to distribute kit and equipment to local clubs. The Committee could advise and show clubs how to apply to SRSA for those resources, and could certainly take from Members’ individual pockets to assist clubs in their localities.

Mr L Ntshayisa (AIC) noted that the DG had alluded to millions that had been given to clubs. He was concerned, as he had been running a football club at the Castle league level, and had never seen the money the DG was talking about. How was the distribution of such funds determined, and was it monitored? He had paid more than R300 000 from his own pocket to keep the club running.

What was the role of municipalities in assisting with club development, since when one approached them they would direct you to a sport section or unit? When one approached such a unit, there was no assistance forthcoming.

Mr Malatsi said that Dr Van der Spuy had alluded to information that was on record which affected the performance of SRSA for the second quarter, but which was not evidenced and could change the Committee’s perspective. That outstanding information which was not evidenced made it challenging to interrogate the performance of SRSA, as reporting was about what was presented to the Committee, where oral submissions simply did not carry the same weight as written ones.

There were only two schools that had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in terms of reporting as sport-focus schools, while there were already learners in some of the other schools which were getting support to nurture their talent. What was the challenge in finalising the MoUs with the other schools?

How was SRSA reconciling the sport club pilot study with its transformation agenda, especially with the netball, football and athletics sporting codes? From his perspective, the study would have had more impetus had it focused on those codes where there had been minimal or no progress regarding transformation. The omission of cricket and rugby in that pilot raised eyebrows regarding progress on transformation in the country.

Mr Filtane said he believed that SRSA was simply doing too much for people who actually had to be competing to get resources from the state in the first place. That had been evidenced by the DG’s remark that the state had spent so much over the last 18 years with very little to show for it. Sport was by definition something which someone volunteered to participate in, and it was competitive, so SRSA had to give clubs an opportunity to raise their hands and exhibit how they qualified to be assisted.

He had wanted a school in his locality to submit a funding application to the National Lotteries Board (NLB), but their books were in disarray and there was litigation involving the principal, the school governing board and the community. Therefore the school had fallen at the first hurdle which was long before SRSA got involved, and he was certain that that was a prevalent situation in many instances where SRSA would have wanted to be involved.

During apartheid they as youth had set fixtures, where they paid their way to competitions and would play for trophies, and that had been very fulfilling. Currently clubs where worried about playing regionally without playing for the local leagues, and were blaming federations and government for not carrying out their mandate when the fixtures were actually their own. Therefore he believed that SRSA needed to focus on policy, which included transformation and infrastructure, because otherwise it was spreading itself too thinly with its multiple programmes and was getting no return on any of its investments.

Mr Bergman said that the SRSA was far more complimentary about its own quarterly performance report than the Committee could afford to be. Given the explanations by Dr Van der Spuy, and as acceptable as they were, in an environment like sports, coming second was not winning. Therefore if SRSA had reported a target as non-achievable it stayed like that, despite oral explanations. Where he did agree with Dr Van der Spuy was that SRSA had to look at the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and that possibly its measurements were wrong. For instance, in the South African Institute on Drug-Free Sport (SAIDS), if agencies did not come and seek assistance from SAIDS, what was the measure to be used there? How could it be said that SRSA was the one failing? The same problem would persist in the third quarter, because there were already two or three highlighted KPIs that would not be achieved and that performance would always look unnecessarily bad.

He understood why the sport club system model was piloted in only two areas. For it to be done properly, there had to be a working and real blueprint before doing it in other areas to avoid the risk of duplicating mistakes and having the programme regressing. However, he suggested that SRSA took ten clubs outside of the pilot areas that it felt were the best in their respective codes, and study what had worked there, and take ten more clubs from another region also outside which were the worst performing, which would have approached SRSA and asked for assistance, or would have come on to SRSA’s radar screen for any other reason. Then SRSA would put the latter ten clubs on to the pilot which would have emanated from the previous ten clubs’ management systems, and in that way without duplicating four or five other areas, it could target more areas that would be in need of assistance in the clubs’ development programme.

Ms Manana said she thought municipalities used the MIG 15% for mayoral cup games or intergovernmental games as well, without really assisting communities. How far was the process of officially establishing Indigenous Games federations? Which provinces had such structures? Had SASCOC recognised such federations as well?

On the 10 vacancy interviews which had been concluded and were awaiting approval, when had the closing date been? What was the status with the other five, where the selection committee had adopted selection processes to commence?

On infrastructure support, the other state departments had to push the provinces that had not submitted feedback on time on issues like the facilities audit to SRSA, as that was causing unnecessary difficulty, even if those were to be reported on in the third quarter.

The state already had a sport policy, and the Chairperson needed to address the emotional challenge which Members seemed to be developing when speaking on particular issues in sport. The Committee session was not for debates, as the purpose was to assist the SRSA, its entities and other stakeholders to fulfil the SRSA mandate.

Ms B Dlomo (ANC) said that she had been concerned over the vacancy rate at SRSA, as Minister Nhlanhla Nene had alluded to closing down funding for outstanding vacancies. Had there been a short list to fill those funded posts before the deadline?

On the sport club system pilot, she wanted to know which clubs SRSA had targeted so that she could assist with overseeing whether there was any progress as per the model that the Department was using. She certainly would have thought that the more rural areas of KZN would have been targeted with the pilot, as this was where football lovers were based, but which had a lot more barriers to participation.

Ms Abrahams wanted to know what had happened to the nine athletes from the 40 that had been assisted with the scientific support programme in 2013. Had an advisory and monitoring service been set up for the talent identification system? What was the status of establishing the National Hall of Fame and the cost implications thereof?

Was there a separate vacancy rate for persons with disabilities and if so, what was the challenge in filling those posts?

How many volunteers from the National Sports Volunteer Corps programme had been placed in different development programmes in provinces, and how many more remained to be placed?

Had the sports buses been delivered to provinces, and which provinces had benefited already from that initiative?

Which areas had benefited from the rural sport improvement programmes roll-out so far for 2014/15 and what were the planned programmes going forward in that regard?

Mr Mmusi asked what the status was of the database that SRSA had intended to gather regarding unemployment of sports graduates. How many of those had been awarded an opportunity to study further through the SRSA bursaries?

What was the status of provinces regarding completing an audit of clubs in order to implement the club development project?  

How much of an allocation had Boxing SA (BSA) received, and what steps were to be taken in addressing the dire situation in that federations governance structures?

How had SRSA assisted SAIDS to address its financial challenges considering what the Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA) had said about the state of that entity?

Regarding the vacancy rate of persons with disabilities, what percentage of the SRSA staff did it constitute?

Did SRSA vacancy advertisements invite applications from individuals living with disabilities?

Could the DG speak to why the Northern Cape (NC) had no sport focus school?

Mr Ralegoma said that the Committee would await SRSA making good on its word to make right in the third quarter on all the non-achieved targets. On the filling of vacancies, at one point that challenge had been attributed to the SRSA organogram not being approved by NT -- had that then been approved eventually?

What was the status of the training of teachers by the Culture Art Tourism Hospitality and Sports Sector Education and Training Authority (CATHSSETA) and SASCOC?

He accepted the pilot study into sport club systems, but maintained that SRSA had to put pressure on NFs as he did not understand how they could claim to be champions in certain codes but simultaneously not want to put pressure on clubs to comply, because at one point he had thought that NFs needed to be responsible for the development of clubs. He hoped the pilot would give the sporting fraternity a way of sorting out club development since without club development and even a working school sport programme, there remained a gap between beyond high school and tertiary education, where players would need to continue playing.

The Chairperson asked whether SRSA had any measure that could speak to employees exiting SRSA soon after the vacancy rate had been brought down, as that fed into a vicious cycle of a constantly high vacancy rate. Was there any suggestion that the Committee could propose to SRSA to deal with that situation?

The DG said that vacancies would always be a challenge for SRSA which was why the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) viewed a 5% vacancy rate as full employment, as there was always permanent recruitment going forward. Even with SRSA’s last vacant posts advertisement, Ms Lubanga could attest to resignations within SRSA of about three staff members exiting SRSA. Only recently, since SRSA had started advertising more quickly and recruiting faster than the attrition rate had there been some reprieve.

On funds for clubs, provinces bought equipment for clubs. The millions that he had alluded to being spent on clubs was actually referring to buying equipment for local clubs.

On the role of municipalities, they had a concurrent function with SRSA and the provinces. In terms of the constitution, municipalities were responsible for programming, which meant that facilities’ provision as well as running programmes in those facilities was their responsibility. SRSA was responsible for policy, but when it saw so many letters from councillors as well as mayors asking it to buy sport equipment for local clubs, then one could discern that there were problems. Most municipalities did not budget for sport, apart from facilities, and that was possibly where the challenge started.

On the SRSA’s work in rural areas tying up with the rural areas sport improvement programme, the DG said that Ms Mjo would have to supply the Committee with a list of all the areas which SRSA had reached with this programme, since SRSA worked with amaKhosi in that regard. SRSA gave amaKhosi equipment and a little money so that over school holidays they could run rural sports tournaments which largely were actually community sports.

The reason why eThekwini received so much money, and there were so many football clubs registered there was a legislative issue, since the equitable share formula divided those amounts. SRSA could not take money allocated for Durban to spend somewhere else. SRSA had already cross-subsidised some provinces with the formula it had forced NT to accept,

On sport focus schools, the biggest challenge was that school governing boards (SGBs) had to pass a resolution and after that had been signed, the MoU could be approached. Some schools had passed partial resolutions and SRSA was working with them, but they had not yet ratified the MoU. The DG had spoken about the tediousness of getting those resolutions at one briefing with the Committee, where some schools were refusing to take up the offer on the basis that it meant opening football and many other codes which they did not like.

Perhaps Mr Filtane’s views about SRSA spreading itself too thinly were acceptable, but if the Department stopped playing the role it was playing in SA there would be very little sport happening. Though the resources were not there, considering that many municipalities did not budget for sport and that six of the nine provinces were also not budgeting for sports programmes, if SRSA reverted to doing only policy work, then sport would collapse.

Mr Bergman’s point on KPIs was well taken by the SRSA and in its next APP where there would be time to review the next KPIs and it would clean out all the dependencies. Although it had been recommended that SRSA needed to remove all the Key Performance Areas (KPAs) where it was dependent on other people, the DG knew what the dangers of that were. He would look very good as he would not have to worry about what SASCOC had to do, or what it was not doing, but if that was how SRSA operated then nothing else in the NSRP would be accomplished. Though the DG had chosen the sharp edge of a double-edged sword and it was guillotining him, he at least understood why SRSA had to look at its entities the way it was doing.

SRSA also welcomed the second suggestion on the study of the ten top clubs. That was a study that it could workshop so that the pilot would run in the two provinces and that initiative could be run by the rest of the other provinces in the country.

SRSA acknowledged that the MIG was being used for mayoral cups and inter-governmental games and not for what it was supposed to be, which was why SRSA was insisting on it being pooled.

SRSA would not lose the vacancies and it disagreed with NT on Minister Nene’s stance, as that would compromise service delivery in a very big way. The deadline to fill those vacancies would be February 2015 and SRSA was confident it would have filled all the vacancies by then.

The list of clubs in eThekwini had already been submitted to the secretariat, and Ms Dlomo could access it there and her assistance would be greatly appreciated by SRSA in terms of oversight.

The residence programme in Scientific Support was being phased out by SRSA. Indeed, in 2013 there 40 athletes on the programme, but those were the last athletes in the pipeline using that old residence programme. The decision recently was that those athletes would be taken through the entire system, but there had been no new intakes for the last two years and SRSA was focusing on improving the sport focus schools by redirecting the funds to those that were originally set aside for scientific support. There were three more years remaining for that residency programme.

On the National Hall of Fame, SRSA had completed the scoping exercise and had agreed that the approach had to be changed. It had spoken to the Department of Arts and Culture (DAC) and the agreement had been that the Hall of Fame needed to be positioned within the current legal framework. That framework provided for museums, and the Hall of Fame would be declared a museum so that then it became a public entity of DAC. SRSA had already done preliminary work of what had to go into that sport museum, and it envisaged that if the MIG supported it, and it built the first SRSA regional sport hub in Tshwane, it would have offices for federations, a sports house and also SRSA offices with sporting fields and a museum. SRSA saw the museum as fully operational within the next eight to ten years, depending on how quickly the MIG supported it.

In the meantime SRSA was negotiating with the DAC that at the Ditsong National Museum of Natural History in Pretoria, the dilapidated west wing to be renovated so that it could become a sort of sport museum in the interim.

SRSA was one of the few departments that had met the 2% disabled work force target set by DPSA, but with exit of the SRSA’s only two disabled persons, it had regressed on that target.

SRSA adverts were quite clear on encouraging persons with disabilities to apply to the Department, and that they were given preference.

None of the volunteer corps had been deployed yet since all of them still had to undergo training and security screening. Unfortunately that was not in SRSA hands and the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) had said that that screening was not a priority.

The sport buses tender had been issued four times by SRSA, and there had been zero responses on all occasions. On the third occasion, there had been 14 companies at the briefing session but none had tendered and seemingly the issue was customising the buses to SRSA specifications, which seemed to be a deterrent. Even the big companies which SRSA had encouraged to bid had said that they did not want state tenders, and that SRSA would have to pay the money in advance if it wanted the buses done. The tender had once again been issued and SRSA was crossing fingers that at least one company would meet the requirements to qualify, because the project had been delayed by one year eight months.

Regarding Boxing SA, its entire annual grant had been given to it and SRSA had also assisted with some of its work by appointing Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs (ENS) Africa to assist BSA with finalising its regulations for committees and governance structures. The BSA board simply had to approve those regulations.  SRSA had paid for BSA’s audit fees and were also supporting it with an enquiry into the death of a boxer in a boxing ring. Moreover, ever since SRSA’s administrator had arrived at BSA there had been stability in that organisation and SRSA had had to suspend the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of BSA, on top of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Acting CEO. The CFO was being charged with dereliction of duty and the unaccountability of funds, as per the AGSA outcomes for BSA.

SRSA was discussing with SAIDS the issues of funding, but had also decided not to only discuss with them but to include the laboratory in Bloemfontein.

SRSA had hosted the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) conference in 2013, and the WADA code was being implemented from January 2015. In terms of that code, there were three new tests that SAIDS did not have capability for, but the University of the Free State (UFS) laboratory had. The laboratory needed R6 million to buy the new equipment to do those tests, but the SRSA had forced the UFS to show it its transformation and sustainability plans for SRSA to give the UFS that money. Therefore SAIDS and the UFS were working together on those plans.

Regarding sport focus schools in the Northern Cape, there were simply no federations in that province and the SGBs there simply did not show any interest, even though the principals raised their hands.

SRSA’s organogram had not yet been approved but there was a ladies’ and gentlemen’s agreement with DPSA that to the extent of the posts it differed on with SRSA, those would not be filled, but on those the two departments agreed on, SRSA would be allowed to continue filling them. To also circumvent the NIA clearance, SRSA had introduced a new clause into the contracts of new civil servants where the DG was saying that employment was subject to candidates passing the security clearance by NIA. Moreover, he reserved the right to recover the money from candidates which would have been spent on interviews and transport.

On the CATHSSETA and SASCOC debacle with the training of teachers, the NSRP clearly stated that the responsibility for training coaches was SASCOC’s. SRSA had gone to negotiate with CATHSSETA on SASCOC’s behalf to say that it should allocate money to SASCOC so that it could train coaches. Previously the DG had reported that the teacher training target would not be reached at the rate that that was happening, and still SASCOC had not prioritised the training of teachers, but the training of its own officials had been prioritised. The current teacher recruits were about 300, where two SASCOC officials were also working on a framework for teacher training. Indeed, SASCOC had trained coaches but those had been administrators from federations. SRSA had assisted SASCOC when CATHSSETA had challenges in accrediting the whole coach training framework. SRSA had assisted only because it wanted the process to move, but that would have put the schools sport programme in jeopardy.

On club development, the DG agreed the pilot would take a long time, but SRSA had to be focused as it could not afford to be everywhere. Mr Bergman’s suggestion would certainly receive the necessary attention as it opened another possible avenue that SRSA could follow with the seven other provinces.

The Chairperson noted that if it came down to the Committee giving SRSA timeframes, then that could be done, but it was not fair to simply discourage the Department since Rome was also not built in a day.

The meeting was adjourned.