Minister on provinces’ sport funding & accountability, football match-fixing, Treasury funding negotiations; SRSA 3rd Quarter 2014/15 performance & 2015/16 Strategic Plan, Facility Audit report

Meeting report

Sports and Recreation South Africa (SRSA) 3rd Quarter 2014/15 performance
Mr Alec Moemi, Director-General: SRSA, introduced his delegation. Noting that the third quarter report was for the period October to December 2014, he went through presentation. He said that in terms of the new Annual Performance Plan (APP), SRSA had moved some of its quarter 3 targets to quarter 4, especially those that were for Programme 1: Administration.

Schools provided with sport equipment and apparel:
By the end of March 2015 SRSA would have distributed to 600 more schools over and above the 350 from quarter 3. Since the performance agreement Minister Fikile Mbalula had signed with President Zuma, stated that SRSA should distribute sport equipment and apparel to 6400 schools annually, SRSA would from 2016 onwards work towards that, though that mandate was unfunded. Programmes like the South African Sport and Recreation Conference (SASReCon) which was biennial would now be held once every four years.

Multilateral engagements supported:
Mr Moemi informed the Committee that Deputy Minister Gert Oosthuizen was the Chairman for the United Nations Agency for Physical Education and Sport (UNAPS).  He also chaired the Working Committee on Sport for Peace and Development. SA participated in the United Nation’s Inter-Governmental Committee for Physical Education and Sport (CIGEPS) the International Conference of Ministers and Senior Officials Responsible for Physical Education and Sport (MINEPS). Cuba had approached SA because of the work its secretariat had been doing in the UN Conference of Parties on Sport and Recreation and declared that since it would not be standing for the chairmanship of that conference going forward, SA should release the Deputy Minister so that he should be the new chairman of the conference from 2016. SRSA was considering the request and that showed the type of work the country was doing in multilateral engagements.

Provinces with a completed facility audit:
SRSA would not achieve the facilities audit because the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) system model needed for the audit had been quoted at R47 million for the CSIR to develop. The Department of Science and Technology (DST) had agreed to share the cost of that audit system with SRSA with the provision that SRSA pay up to 50% of the cost to develop the system but even that amount was too far from the R4 million that SRSA had budgeted for the system.

Overall performance
With all the challenges of having to provide a portfolio of evidence in terms of video footage for the new auditors at the Auditor General SA (AGSA) SRSA maintained that it was confident it would not be qualified on performance information by AGSA. Moreover it would retain its clean audit record.

Discussion
Mr S Mabika (NFP) needed clarity on the distribution of equipment to schools because if SRSA had only distributed to 350 schools and still remained with over 600 more to deliver to, he was confused as to how SRSA felt that it was almost at the tail end of achieving that objective. What measures were there to ensure that the equipment reached its intended recipients? Was there a plan to monitor the use and wear of the equipment after delivery? Regarding scientific testing versus athletic talent, Mr Mabika needed and explanation of how the tests were conducted and how the outcomes affected athletes adversely after testing?

Ms Manana thanked SRSA for inviting the Committee to partake in the Nelson Mandela Sport and Culture Day in 2014. Members of the Committee had won medals for their participation in the 10 km race. In that way the Committee was able to do on the spot oversight and could verify that events reported on had taken place and the logistics involved. She asked how many rural sports development programmes had been rolled out in 2014/15, which areas had benefitted and what were the other planned programmes in that regard.

Mr L Filtane (UDM) said that it was encouraging to see that so much had been done with so little budget. He asked what the actual problem was with facility auditing at SRSA; was it a capacity issue?  Though the DG had explained the issues with the non-compliant portfolio of evidence for AGSA; why was the method used for collection of the portfolio of evidence non-compliant with auditing standards in the first place?
What was the situation with the non-transfer of funding to the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) at that time? What had caused the delay in providing some schools with sports equipment and kit in the third quarter? Besides taking the responsibility of allocating sports funding away from provinces as a solution to the challenge of provinces doing that, how would that affect the running of programmes at SRSA. Concurrent functions were given to provinces so that provinces could execute them on behalf of SRSA national.

Mr S Malatsi (DA) asked what else had delayed the training of staff seeing that bidding for the Commonwealth Games and evolving staff dynamics within SRSA had been noted as some reasons behind that? SRSA was lamenting the lack of cooperation by provinces for the second time, in supplying information to consolidate programme reports such as that for mass participation and to do the transfers for these programmes. As SRSA was not allowed by National Treasury to use to the full extent its punitive measures and reward systems, Mr Malatsi felt that it was about time that the department moved beyond that particular obstacle. The Committee was gradually going to lose patience with reasoning about lack of cooperation because it was consistently affecting SRSA performance. In terms of the delivery of sports equipment to schools he recalled that there had been talk about the establishment of a central procurement process previously. Had it been established and how well was it working in expediting the provision of that equipment? This was over and above the expectation of provincial SRSAs to execute that function on behalf of SRSA national. What was the way forward in proceeding with the completion of the facilities audit over and above the stated challenges and when was the Committee going to be given a new timeline for the completion of that audit.     

Mr S Ralegoma (ANC) said that his main concern was about scientific testing in a similar manner as had been expressed by Mr Mabika because it had to be informed so that it did not become an obstacle after athletes had been identified and placed on the Ministerial Sports Bursary. Although SRSA had had its organogram and Human Resources (HR) Plan approved it had to ensure that vacancies were filled and it had the necessary capacity.  He agreed with Mr Malatsi's concern on SRSA performance and how provinces were hampering the department's overall performance, especially how money was spent in provinces and whether it was for the intended purpose. Some of the Committee's Budget Review recommendations had been its support for the consolidation of the 15% Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) for sport to be given back to SRSA. Was there any progress in getting Treasury to agree to that?

The Chairperson noted that the Minister would certainly also respond to that last question as well.

Responses
Mr Moemi replied that in terms of the Rural Sport Improvement programme, SRSA had held seven tournaments in 2014/15 though unfortunately the geographic spread of these tournaments was skewed. There had been three in KwaZulu Natal (KZN) and four in the Eastern Cape (EC). In 2015/16 SRSA would not only liaise with only the National House of Traditional Leaders (NHTL) but would also work with the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) because SRSA was concerned about the skewed spread and impact of that programme for the past two financial years. To that end, one of the tournaments would be held amongst the 60 villages constituting the Thaba Nchu region of the Free State in 2015/16 as a start. Moreover SRSA had agreed with COGTA to expand the programme to add the Indigenous Games codes to the Rural Sport Improvement programme because it had been only in the uMvezo Traditional Council that athletics had been done, over and above the traditional soccer and netball codes. Interestingly Thaba Nchu had requested SRSA to add softball to the codes that would be played in that region's tournament, including those Indigenous Games codes. Currently the equipment and funding were given to the Traditional Chief of a region so that the tournament could be held over seven days, though certain traditional houses completed the tournament over a weekend. As the custodian of the tournament, the UbuKhosi in Qumbu for instance, had slaughtered a cow to feed the attendees of the tournament and had also put up a sheep as part of the final prize for the victors of the tournament.

SRSA had transferred funding to SASCOC at that stage and that was after it had fully complied with the department's requirements. The resistance to comply with SRSA prescripts to ensure SRSA funding transfer centred around the fact that historically, SASCOC would determine how many medals SA athletes should earn at the Olympics. The current management of SRSA believed that the political leadership of the Ministry had to determine such a target for SASCOC and not the other way around, seeing that it was SRSA that was allocating monies. The challenges were that prior to the 2012 Olympics in London a number of athletes had written to the Deputy Minister over their non-inclusion and funding for preparation to that competition. The reasoning for those athletes being unfunded was that they were not ranked amongst the top eight in their respective codes globally. SRSA had decided to use its scientific testing unit to evaluate those athletes and the outcomes were that those athletes had medal winning merit and so when SRSA transferred money to SASCOC in 2012 it ring-fenced money around athletes separately from that money for the preparation of Team SA. Of course SASCOC had lamented the fact that SRSA was interfering in its selection criteria operations but the DG had maintained that SRSA was not selecting a team but getting SASCOC to support elite athletes that actually qualified to be on Team SA and fortunately most of those athletes whom money had been ring-fenced around, returned to SA with the exact number of medals as predicted by the scientific support unit.  As a consequence of that SRSA had decided that for 2016 Rio Olympics it needed only eight medals from Team SA and that had for the first time been included in the performance agreement with SASCOC. SASCOC had ultimately signed that agreement after initial resistance due to the reasons alluded to above. The DG went to elaborate on other examples of athletes qualifying both by ranking and invitation for the Olympics whom SASCOC would have wanted to support over and above the consistent medal winning athletes that were not ranked amongst the top eight in the world. SA had to make the tough choices concerning athletes because SRSA would not be emotionally blackmailed into paying for teams that had no chance of medalling in global competitions as that was a very costly exercise.

SRSA had transferred provincial allocations to all provinces except the North West. It was steadfast to not only wield the stick but to support provinces to meet the departments’ standards and requirements for transfers. In that regard SRSA had expanded its grant administration unit with a full time grant administrator and two seconded staff members. In the Fourth Parliament the Committee would recall that SRSAs audit queries were on the administration of the grant where currently that had been eliminated and what remained was challenges with the quality of reporting. SRSA had received the Committee's support to commit the lesser evil of not transferring money to non-accounting provinces rather than the bigger evil of transferring funds knowing perfectly well that there would be no accounting for the use of the money. The situation had changed fortunately and everyone was reporting except the North West was not receiving funding because it was not reporting. The current Premier had simply separated the provincial SRSA into two departments which had paralyzed SRSA relations with the province for almost nine months. Treasury had even taken back the money from SRSA though the DG had asked to be given the money to give it to struggling provinces like the Northern Cape. After convincing the Premier to put SRSA provincial back together Treasury gave back the money for the North West.

Indeed the effect of the Commonwealth Games bid affecting staff training had been anticipated and planned for but even with all of that SRSA had expected Canada to fight to the end to get the bid to host. Since African countries of the Commonwealth constituted about 43% of the vote SRSA had secured that vote. The Oceania Commonwealth had also been lobbied convincingly to support SA's bid and that took the vote for SA to host to 64%. With Canada asking the question in the media if an African country had the money to host such an event, that unfortunately backfired because the Oceanic conference Islands resolved more than before to completely support SAs bid. With Canada withdrawing many other issues needed to be attended to almost immediately which meant that staff had to be redirected to attending to those issues. That alternatively adversely impacted training of staff which had to be postponed to January 2015.

SRSA had indicated that it would deliver to 600 more schools above its intended target, because of the President’s mandate for SRSA to deliver to 6000 schools by end of the 2015/16 financial year.

Schools receiving sports equipment had to be registered for the Schools Sport League (SSL). They had to be actively participating in the SSL so that the equipment and kit would be used immediately by learners. Moreover SRSA did provincial monitoring and random questionnaires, but because of the issue with the portfolio of evidence that the AGSA required from SRSA, principals currently had to sign and stamp a contract that schools had received kit and equipment. Schools received equipment and kit according to its needs and requests, that is on the registration form for the SSL schools indicated what codes they envisaged playing. Certainly there currently was a disjuncture between the codes on the form and those that were eventually played by a particular school. Those schools identified with stored equipment when SRSA was monitoring, the equipment was taken away and given to schools in need of the kit and equipment.

On talent scouts versus scientific testing, Mr Moemi said that scouting was a very subjective practice, even with three scouts doing that during a particular game. Scientific testing unit therefore counter balanced that subjectivity because if a sprinter in athletics had to run a sub ten sprint in the 100 metres the unit would do an ECG test to determine how quick that sprinters heart pumped blood throughout his body. It also had to determine how quickly the body’s muscle became oxygenated and all of that would tell SRSA whether an athlete could compete with the best in the world or not. Of course science was also not perfect but it was the better tool compared to scouting.

The tender system had been centralised in the sense that a common database of service providers had been compiled and SRSA had issued a price index whereby all provinces were expected to comply as the database had been made available. Provinces still procured but SRSA did the buying because earlier certain provinces bought a R180 ball for approximately R450-R600 and that simply did not make sense nor could SRSA allow that to continue. The bigger challenge remaining was to merge the service providers on the database to provinces because some providers were quite far from where they had to deliver. As ongoing progress, after the current three year cycle SRSA had agreed that part of the agreement with providers would be that they would be willing to have a warehouse in the province they were appointed to service and to employ people from that said province as well.  

Concerning the review and consolidation of the MIG, SRSA and Treasury were not getting to gazetting the consolidation. Treasury had subjected SRSA to COGTAs six proposals that simply ignored SRSAs consolidation proposal, one of which spoke about SRSA attending each and every Municipalities Infrastructure Development Plan (IDP) session.  That would mean additionally hiring 200 more people to study each IDP and to go and try to influence Municipalities to try and provide for sports facilities. The impasse remained between all three departments even though SRSA had complied with Treasury requirements concerning capacity and how the money would be spent.

The Chairperson said that she was worried about what SASCOC had promised to do for Mr Luvo Manyonga as the Committee was still awaiting SASCOCs response in that regard. She asked who was in charge of the rural sport improvement programme.

Mr Makoto Matlala, SRSA Chief Financial Officer (CFO) said that transfers to provinces in terms of the Division of Revenue Act (DoRA) and that had always caused a lot of difficulties for national departments across the board in terms of provinces reporting about the use of funding allocations. Since Mr Malatsi had asked what punitive measures SRSA was planning to take to straighten out incomplete or unsatisfactory reporting. In that regard SRSA had introduced a schedule of penalties to provinces policy which had been endorsed by SRSAs Management Committee (MANCO). The effect of the penalties would be that since SRSA had to process a transfer to a province each quarter, the schedule now had introduced a compliance checklist that had to be completed before the transfer. If there were outstanding requirements from that checklist that province would forfeit 5% of its transfer for that term. The 5% would accumulate each term if a province continued with non-compliance. So far the 90 days provision for the DG to withhold money from a non-compliant province was proving to be fruitful and the policy would further enforce compliance.

In terms of expenditure and budgets, provinces submitted monthly reports to SRSA. Interestingly even North West had spent at least 80% of their allocations.

Ms Phumeza Lubanga, Chief Audit Executive, SRSA, said that the SRSA organogram had 209 funded posts whereby it had 52 vacant positions currently. 31 of those positions had been advertised by end of November 2014 and in the process of filling them, the advent of upward movement of SRSA staff more vacancies opened up. 18 positions from the 52 vacant positions which had been advertised anew had been closed in February 2015.  Below level 13 positions, which were below directorship, recommendations had been made by the panel so that the DG could appoint all the individuals already past the interview process. Above level 13 candidates still had to go through competency tests though they had been recommended for appointment as well. 20 new external appointments had been completed by SRSA with four officials having been promoted internally as well. There had been six terminations and 28 remaining vacancies and the new deadline for completion of that recruitment process was the 31 March 2015. 

The DG elaborated that 18 of the remaining 28 vacancies would not be filled because they were additional to the approved organogram and would remain semi-permanent as a result.

The Chairperson reiterated that the Committee was still steadfast in its support for the MIG to be consolidated and given back to SRSA. An official of SALGA had informed the Chairperson of particular challenges with the MIG, COGTA and the Treasury. She promised to share the information with the Committee at a different time.

Mr Malatsi welcomed the introduction of the schedule of penalties and said that the Committee wanted to hold SRSA accountable for its performance not the inaction of others. He suggested that perhaps the awarding of the Ministerial Sport bursary be moved far earlier into the year so as to give SRSA enough time to do the scientific testing and put only those that satisfy the department of their talent beyond scouting. However, he was concerned about SRSA finding out that it had been cheated somehow into awarding a bursary to a non-deserving candidate and what alternative then SRSA was providing for that candidate as and when he/she was removed from the bursary.

The DG replied that children who cheated intentionally and were found out, the bursary was taken away simple. Those that were identified by scouts as talented and the scientific tests were proving that they were not so talented: SRSA then would look at giving them another chance at other codes and to see if they would not be better competent there.

Mr Malatsi applauded SRSAs new stance of determining medals expected from competitions like the Olympics and the commonwealth. However, previously there had been inter federation fights since SASCOC imposed caps on the number of medals that were expected of federations for example the SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL BOXING ORGANISATION (SANABO) issue where that entity reported that SASCOC had only required one medal from open boxers in the commonwealth. That had almost limited the number of boxers going to the competition to three only. Seeing that SASCOC had promised the Committee ten medals at its last appearance with SRSA now promising eight, had that occurred prior to the departments determination of its medal expectations from team SA. Did federations make individual submissions to SRSA in assisting it to determine the number of medals it should request from SASCOC versus the real level of competitiveness of athletes over and above federation ambitions?

Mr Filtane indicated that he had not been sufficiently responded to in terms of his question regarding non delivery of equipment to schools.

Mr L Ntshayisa (AIC) said that he was concerned by the fact the facilities audit target would not be met by the end of the financial year under review because during IDPs Municipalities allocated money for sports facilities but ended up never being used could the SRSA attend to that quickly.

Mr Moemi said that if SASCOC was promising an additional two medals over and above what SRSA required that was welcomed. SRSA subscribed to Sportcall, a global sports distribution agency which supplied the department with performance information of athletes globally on a daily base in terms of ongoing competitions. That information was used to track consistency of performance by athletes and to determine fairly what medals to expect and from which athletes.    
Mr Moemi reiterated that equipment had been purchased in January for delivery when schools reopened and 600 more schools were to be targeted over and above the already supplied schools.

Indeed facilities audit was the only target that SRSA would not meet in 2014/15, however that target was already back into the DGs performance agreement for the 2015/16 financial year. To that extent a MANCO had been set up to look into the three provinces that had not started at all with the audit and SRSA knew that the reason was lack of capacity. The challenge therein was the type of information that was required, besides the grading and classification framework. The train a trainer programme of people that had to go and audit a facility, they could not say a level two facility was a level three. He then elaborated on the norms and standards used to determine the levels during audit and all the attendant documentation that was required for a complete audit. Only KZN and the Western Cape had completed a facilities audit to the satisfaction of SRSA requirements and SRSA had begun assisting Limpopo, Mpumalanga and Gauteng to start auditing and the remaining provinces had not started unfortunately. Over and above this SRSA still needed a system that would analyse and disaggregate all that data and it was that system that was very expensive.

Minister on province sport funding & accountability, football match-fixing, Treasury funding negotiations
Minister Fikile Mbalula said that it was part of Ministers’ Programme of Action (POA) to appear before Committees. There was always Deputy Ministers that could step in when Ministers could not appear.

Provinces funding for sport, provinces’ accountability for funding
Minister Mbalula said that SRSA had raised the issue of funding for sport at the Ministers and Members of Executive Councils Meeting (MinMEC) at a political level. The resolution had been that in the upcoming provincial budgets tabling sport funding had to be reflected on and monies set aside. Certain provinces did allocate funding for sports but if MECs were not prepared to do their job that matter would always be a challenge.

Updates on football match-fixing
Minister Mbalula said that he had written to Jérôme Valcke, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) general secretary, after the Committees’ last meeting with him on the match fixing matter. Mr Valcke had replied that the Minister should consult Mr Michael J. Garcia who had been appointed as the head of the investigatory chamber of the ethics Committee at FIFA in 2012. The South African Football Association (SAFA) had also requested the Minister to accompany its delegation to New York to meet with Mr Garcia and he had agreed on the provision that that trip would not be paid with funds from the state. The Minister said that the issue was that there was no unity between SRSA and SAFA on what should be investigated as if SRSA would be investigating more than just match fixing, and SRSA had then advised President Zuma to then allow FIFA to complete its investigation into match fixing before doing anything else.
Mr Garcia had not done anything in terms of the match fixing matter but SRSA would not leave that matter as it was currently because those SA individuals implicated in the matter had come forward volunteering to be investigated because they wanted to clear their names. The Minister had been invited to the SAFA Annual General Meeting (AGM) where match fixing and a way forward would be on the agenda. The Minister had no issue going to New York but that would have to be sanctioned by SAFA with the Committee’s endorsement as the match fixing cloud hung over SA football everywhere and every time it was referred to globally.

Negotiations with National Treasury on funding for approved mandates
SRSA had met and engaged with Treasury and Minister Mbalula acknowledged that SRSA certainly would not be getting any increase in its budget therefore it had to work with what it was receiving because the R 1,7 Billion that had been mentioned in the national budget speech was a gross exaggeration. SRSA with the Committee’s support had to simply fight for what was already there, that is the MIG consolidation. He was certain that sports would never be a priority in SA but certainly would remain in the middle towards the end.

The Chairperson informed Minister Mbalula that the Committee had resolved to have COGTA come before the Committee to hear what it was saying concerning the MIG because social cohesion was a key objective of SRSA. The Committee expected a report back from the Minister after the SAFA AGM.  
 
Mr Mabika said that the report back on match fixing still spoke to exactly the same matters since Minister Mbalula’s last report and he was wondering who was supposed to be dealing with issues like match fixing. It could not be allowed that FIFA downplayed that matter as it was affecting the country adversely. Endorsing further engagement with Mr Valcke seemed fruitless therefore possibly Sepp Blatter, FIFA President was the better person to engage to find out his sentiments about match fixing.

Mr Bergman said it was interesting to hear that FIFA had been worried that SA would investigate more than match fixing had a Presidential commission of Inquiry been commissioned in 2012. Possibly other soccer bodies like SAFA in Africa could be lobbied to try and force FIFA to conclude the matter though FIFA behaved like a fiefdom because the reputational risk was not only to individuals but the country.   
eThekwini Municipality stood to benefit more from the MIG than any other Metro in terms of the Commonwealth bid: was there a way of counter balancing that issue and to ensure equity in the MIG across all the other provinces.

Mr Malatsi noted that indeed FIFA seemed to be an obstructive monster that cooperated when it suited it and therefore possibly it was time to change tactics. The Minister could commission a Ministerial inquiry which would resolve some matters and clarify others, because Mr Garcia’s resignation from FIFA was a convenient excuse for FIFA in the delay to conclude the investigation.

Mr Filtane suggested that after the SAFA AGM it would wise for the Minister to declare his position publicly on the match fixing investigations and he could also litigate FIFA if there were any unlawful violations whether international or domestic. The reputational risk probably had restrained outside sponsorship for schools sport in SA because of that issue.
In terms of funding: SRSA could encourage sponsorship and donations from the private sector coupling that with the message that it would not tolerate matters like match fixing taking so long to be resolved.
The Committee would over and above everything else appreciate the Minister’s or the DM’s presence when SRSA entities were coming to account for their expenditure of public funds. Certainly that would improve the perception that the executive wanted to account to their respective Committees.

The Chairperson warned members to not add matters that had not been agreed upon by the whole Committee on to their questions during discussions with the executive.

Ms Manana disagreed with Mr Filtane on the proposal that the Minister or the DM had to appear before the Committee when entities where accounting for expenditure because the DG was readily available.

Mr Filtane interjected that he had actually written to the Minister on that matter the Chairperson should not allow Ms Manana.

The Chairperson also interjected that she would not allow Mr Filtane to disrupt other members’ inputs because the Committee session was different from the plenary session.

Mr Filtane interjected again that the Chairperson could not allow Ms Manana to speak as she was doing because that was going to make the proceedings regress.
The Chairperson disrupted Mr Filtane asking him whether she had recognised him before he had spoken. She warned again that the Committee room was not the chamber and members unhappy with each other’s conduct still had to give each other an opportunity to speak and not to disrupt. She reprimanded Mr Filtane strongly noting that she would take action against him if he repeated his actions.

Ms Manana continued that the Committee had the DG and had Heads of Departments (HODs) in provinces that accompanied the Committee during oversight so that whatever findings the Committee had they were attended to by those officials. She noted that even Mr Garcia had been at loggerheads with Mr Valcke and therefore the Committee would await the Minister’s report post SAFA AGM.

Mr Ralegoma concurred that the Committee could not fight wars that were not theirs. He recalled that the Association Internationale de Boxe Amateur (AIBA) was fighting with the World Boxing Council (WBC) over boxing issues, therefore because FIFA was an international body behaving as explained by Minister Mbalula, the Committee had to choose its fights. Therefore the Committee had to deal with SAFA as mentioned by the Minister so that SA federations influenced and actually started inculcating that transformation agenda into their bigger regulatory affiliates. The Committee was aware that SAFA had not wanted a Ministerial inquiry before.

The Chairperson apologised to the Minister for the altercation that had occurred before him and said that was not the normal practise of the proceedings of the Committee.

The Minister said that the FIFA issue would possibly need timelines for conclusion, but that needed SAFAs endorsement as SRSA could not do anything without SAFA in that regard. An inquiry would be the last resort failing which SAFA could not decide what to do concerning match fixing and FIFA.
It was his competency to investigate in collaboration with federations intra-federation matters because for example when SRSA had investigated Cricket South Africa (CSA) the International Cricket Council (ICC) had endorsed the investigation which was why that matter had been concluded speedily. Immediately the Minister commissioned an inquiry there would be a letter from FIFA in no time saying that Government was interfering with football matters. A Minister could not even speak on the performance of his own country’s national team as far as FIFA was concerned.

In terms of Mr Filtane’s sentiments the Minister said that SRSA definitely could come when entities were accounting for expenditure.

The DG replied that indeed resources were diverted to the hosting city by the hosting province. SRSA had done a study with Ernst and Young to look at the current funding of KZN, its cities and eThekwini and how long it would take for one ward to get a multipurpose sport court facility each. The outcome was that that would take 37 years to achieve all of that with the current funding model. Using bid money though, that target could be reached in seven years. Moreover it would have taken SA 318 years to build the world cup infrastructure had it not been held in SA in 2010. The other provinces typically continued with their programmes as planned and the country had to insist that that was done.
The bulk of the people who would feel the impact of the Commonwealth Games in 2022, where the eThekwini city region current 14 year olds as they would be adults by that time.

The Minister said principally the political leadership of SRSA were not against coming before the Committee when expenditure by entities was being accounted for. He also noted that the last time SRSA staff had come to parliament SRSA had landed up in court being sued by promoters in the boxing fraternity and he could understand why the Committee was quiet on that matter seeing that it knew the current situation of boxing in SA.
From then he mentioned the issue of Mr Zolani Tete having to leave the country to defend his title. Moreover SRSA sponsored every championship title boxing defence in the country and it was not right that he had to defend against promoters litigation that were hampering the development and professionalization of boxing in SA. SRSA had to be concerned with SANABO and not professional boxing.

The Chairperson noted the Minister’s comments concerning federations and the challenges SRSA had in that regard. Moreover she noted that the finalisation of the Sports Combat Bill would deal with many of the issues concerning boxing in the country. She said that all other business of that day would be deferred to the next meeting of the Committee.

The meeting was then adjourned.