Committee Report on Sports and Recreation SA (SRSA) budget

Sport, Arts and Culture

05 May 2015
Chairperson: Mr S Ralegoma (ANC) (Acting)
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Meeting Summary

The Committee deliberated on the SRSA Draft Report on Budget Vote 40. It identified the National Sport and Recreation Plan (NSRP) as a policy document to guide sport development in SA while ensuring alignment with the 2014-2019 Medium Term Strategic Framework (MTSF). Its observations were:
- On athletes achieving international success, it stated that it was important for SRSA to indicate clearly set targets and assess the possibility of attaining the goal of improving world rankings for athletes and medal winning in international competitions. However, the 2015-2020 Strategic Plan offered no such targets.
- On the budget to Sports Councils, this had increased slightly to ensure that provinces could establish and better manage existing provincial confederations. However, SRSA still needed to develop a monitoring tool to measure the use of those funds as well as the allocations by provinces to provincial sport confederations.
- Accountability was not being enforced on provinces for non-delivery of sporting facilities even though monies had been allocated for such purposes.  
- It seemed unlikely that the Provincial Sport Academy Bill, the Fitness Industry Bill and the SA Combat Sports Bill would be finalised within the timeframes envisaged by SRSA.

The Committee recommended that SRSA should:
- Develop a framework of how provinces used the Division of Revenue Act (DoRA) funds in line with the priorities of the NSRP as approved by the National Treasury.  
- Strengthen monitoring systems of the use of DoRA funds by provinces.
-  Ensure that the facilities audit process would be speedily completed during the 2015/16 MTSF so that the National Facilities Plan (NFP) could be implemented.

The Committee agreed that the decrease in the allocation for sport infrastructure development by SRSA was in direct contradiction to what had been agreed upon between itself and the Committee - which was the roll-out of multipurpose sports facilities in rural areas and in townships.  Moreover that decrease also negatively affected the Committee’s resolve which was that transformation in sport entailed giving access to sport to rural communities.

Meeting report

Due to the Chairperson’s absence, the Committee elected Mr S Ralegoma to be the Acting Chairperson.

Committee Report on Sports and Recreation SA (SRSA) budget
The Committee Secretary read out the draft report. It stated that SRSA had developed the National Sport and Recreation Plan (NSRP) as a policy document to guide sport development in SA while ensuring alignment with the 2014-2019 Medium Term Strategic Framework (MTSF). National Treasury had indicated that SRSA had estimated the cost of the implementation of the NSRP during the 2014-2017 MTSF period to be R15.2 billion. However, the SRSA budget for the 2015-2018 period of the MTSF was R3. 2 billion. This had prompted SRSA to explore the possibility of introducing a tax levy on ticket sales to sport events to augment its budget to fund the NSRP. National Treasury had advised SRSA to table the tax proposal to the Davis Tax Committee. Significantly the infrastructure support programme at SRSA had received the smallest portion of its national allocation which was 0.98% which indicated that infrastructure support fell outside the mandate of SRSA in the current dispensation.

Boxing South Africa (BSA)
Major challenges for BSA included the lack of broadcasting rights, sponsorship and inadequate funding. The organogram of the entity had been found to be unsuitable for the realisation of its mandate whereupon SRSA had seconded staff to support and manage the entity.

South African Institute on Drug-free Sport (SAIDS)
In the 2015/16 financial year SAIDS’ budget had increased to R30 million due to grants from SRSA and the National Lotteries Board (NLB).

 Strategic Priorities and Measurable Objectives of SRSA:
Sport and Recreation Sector Adequately Transformed

This strategic outcome is measured by the indicators: percentage and number of National Federations that achieved their transformation targets. R107.6 million had been earmarked for the sport support service programme in the 2015/16 financial year to support sport and recreation bodies which met their transformation target.

Athletes achieve international success
It was important for SRSA to indicate clearly set targets and assess the possibility to attain the goals of improving world rankings for athletes and medal winning in international competitions. The 2015-2020 Strategic Plan (SP) offered no such targets.

In the medium term SRSA aimed to support 60 athletes with a budget allocation of R27.8 million.

Enabling Mechanism to Support the Delivery of Sport and Recreation
The Sports Trust played an important role in the Ministerial outreach programme of building sports facilities in rural areas. In the 2013/14 financial year the trust had received R65 million from SRSA for that outreach. The budget to Sports Councils was increased from 3 to 4% of the allocation for the Mass Participation And Sports Development conditional grant, so that provinces could establish and better manage existing provincial confederations. SRSA still needed to develop a monitoring tool to measure the use of those funds as well as the allocations by provinces to provincial sport confederations.

The Committee had found that in the Mopani region of Limpopo where SRSA was piloting the club development model, there were positive results in ensuring that communities were taking ownership.

It was important that SRSA established a clear target for the completion of the audit of sport facilities nationally within the 2015-2020 Strategic Plan period as only two provinces had indicated that they had completed the audit.
 
Sport and Recreation Used As a Strategic Tool to Support Government and Global Priorities
The Sport For Social Change programme aimed to catalyse change in the environment, HIV/AIDS epidemic, and as a programme for sport against crime. The programme was strategically linked to the other programmes within SRSA and was dependent on the strength of interdepartmental relations to measure its progress. Therefore a clear monitoring and evaluation tool measuring the impact of sport in that regard was important; especially towards measuring the contribution that sport made to bring about a meaningful change in society.

SRSA had indicated that it would need more funding to implement its new organogram on an incremental budget.

Budget Analysis
SRSA could only implement the NSRP partially or in phases until such time there was enough funding for its full implementation. It had been allocated R3 billion in the medium term where R2 billion would be going towards the Active Nation programme and R417.3 million would be going towards the sport support programme.

Infrastructure Support
One of the major activities that SRSA had been engaging in was the discussion to have the 15% Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) ring-fenced allocation transferred to SRSA. Although in the 2015/16 financial year the MIG would not be administered by SRSA there certainly was a need to plan for the administration of the grant to ensure proper utility in the future.

Observations
- Accountability was not enforced on provinces for non-delivery of sporting facilities with monies that had been allocated for such purposes.  
- It seemed unlikely that the Provincial Sport Academy Bill, the Fitness Industry Bill and the SA Combat Sports Bill would be finalised within the timeframes envisaged by SRSA.

Recommendations
The Committee recommended that SRSA should:
- Develop a framework of how provinces used the Division of Revenue Act (DoRA) funds in line with the priorities of the NSRP as approved by the National Treasury. 
- Strengthen monitoring systems of the use of DoRA funds by provinces.
-  Ensure that the facilities audit process would be speedily completed during the 2015/16 MTSF so that the National Facilities Plan (NFP) could be implemented.

Discussion
Mr S Mabika (NFP) queried the date of an Athletics South Africa (ASA) competition that was supposed to have taken place in April 2015 and whether that had already happened or the identified years were wrong in the report.

Mr P Moteka (EFF) commented that the reduction of the facilities allocation was going against the Committee’s sentiments concerning sport infrastructure development which SRSA understood and agreed with. Those were that there was a need for SRSA to roll out more sports facilities in rural and township areas.

The Acting Chairperson, Mr S Ralegoma (ANC) commented that possible reasons for that were that provincial allocations took up most of SRSA budget and that there was also MIG funds towards municipalities for sport infrastructure development which unfortunately were not controlled by SRSA. At the last South African Local Government Association (SALGA) briefing, the Committee had resolved that it would perhaps have to meet with the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) to resolve some of the challenges with infrastructure development. Possibly the Committee would have to meet with the relevant NCOP Committee to deal with those issues together on the capacity challenges at local government level concerning the roll-out of sports facilities.

Ms D Manana (ANC) said that the Committee needed to apply pressure directly at local government level since SALGA also speculated that it was possibly the mandate of COGTA to provide sporting facilities.

Mr Ralegoma noted that the Committee had raised this in its Budgetary Review and Recommendations Report (BRRR) and the response thereto had not been positive. In that regard he had become aware that the Select Committee on Education and Recreation had similar concerns and recommendations regarding the misuse of DoRA and MIG funding

Mr Moteka noted that the Acting Chairperson was possibly confusing his role at the meeting with that of his party responsibility when in fact he had to exercise neutrality when chairing the meeting. He reiterated his concern about the reduction of the infrastructure development allocation, noting that the Committee was very aware of the misuse of MIG funding by municipalities and the incapacity of provinces to fully utilise their DoRA funding currently as well.

Ms S Mmusi (ANC) said the best thing for the Committee to do concerning SALGA and municipalities was to do oversight of municipalities. Since SRSA had indicated that the filling of vacant posts under the Administration programme was a priority, the Committee had to add that to its recommendations as well.

The Acting Chairperson said that the government of the day was majority ANC, but he certainly was not speaking in his capacity as an ANC member but was apologetic over the fact that he may have sounded partisan.

The Committee Report will be adopted on 12 May 2015.

The meeting was then adjourned.

 

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