Sports Recreation SA on its 1st Quarter performance; Committee Reports on Orlando East Residents Petition; CGE report; Eastern Cape & Gauteng oversight

Meeting report

The Chairperson notified the Director General about a few issues that had concerned the Committee in its recent oversight, one of which was the matter of a 2010 Stadium that had been built in the Eastern Cape in Mthatha where it had surfaced that the land upon which it was built was privately owned. The Municipality had always paid the lease but the owner currently did not want to renew the lease. The Committee would require SRSA to assist in that matter to avoid that stadium becoming a white elephant.

A moment of silence was held for Mr Mike Stofile who had passed away on 19 September 2015.

Presentation 1 on SRSA Performance Quarter 1 of the 2015/16 Financial Year

Mr Alec Moemi, Director General, SRSA, briefed the Committee on the first presentation.

Budget Expenditure Analysis as a 30 June 2015

Transfer payment spending was 27% totalling R197.4 million, which was 2% more than forecast. By September SRSA would have spent 90% of all transfers typically but the slow pace with which federations had been able to comply with the recommendations of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) and able to submit the necessary documentation had delayed transfers. Moreover, the financial years between SRSA and federations were not aligned such that some only could submit their annual audited financial Statements around January the following year, which also meant that SRSA could do the transfers around February of the New Year. That unfortunately had consequences in the 2015/16 financial year, because the auditors had felt that unspent money for federations needed to be returned to National Treasury. SRSA was still currently engaging NT over that matter whilst encouraging federations to align their financial years with that of Government to make things easier for everyone.

Payment for capital assets expenditure was at 7% whereby at the time of the presentation SRSA had actually been at about 60%.

Compensation of Employees as at 30 June 2015

SRSA was still concerned about the higher administration expenditure in that programme compared to its the other core programmes. That was a legacy issue and structural arrangements challenge where SRSA had inherited many non-core personnel. SRSA’s new organogram and staffing plan would show that more people were moved to core functions though the money for all those posts was not immediately available.

SRSA projected that it would have spent about 18% on administration by the end of the 2015/16 financial year, which was relatively higher compared to international norms for organisations like SRSA. Expenditure had been at about 36% three years earlier.

Goods and Services: Programme 4

Expenditure for International Liaison was at 24% but SRSA projected that the percentage would increase dramatically in the following financial years because greater resources would go towards that, due to the work of preparing for the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

Discussion

Ms D Manana (ANC) said she hoped that under spending overall would stabilise in the following quarters.

The Chairperson asked what the role of the Director of School Sport was.

Mr L Ntshayisa (AIC) asked for clarity on the presentation of numbers in the budget presentation as per economic classification.

Mr P Moteka (EFF) asked SRSA whether schools were supposed to ask for equipment and kit from SRSA or the Department of Basic Education (DBE).

Mr S Ralegoma (ANC) asked what the delay was in presenting the first quarter report to the Committee.

Mr Moemi replied that the presentation of numbers in the budget presentation as per economic classification was: the actual monetary expenditure was presented where the comma separated it from the percentage expenditure thereafter.

The role of the Director for School Sport Programme was that of coordinating the schools sport programme. The post had been vacant a very long time. It had been advertised twice but the Department was not convinced about the candidature for it. It would be advertised again for the third time the following week where SRSA hoped it would find a candidate, whereby it had provided in the new advert that the salary would be negotiable. Because it was a specialised post the process was not easy, as SRSA required extensively experienced persons.

The delay in presenting the report was that the quarter had to be completed first. Only at the end of June, could SRSA have its monitoring and evaluation unit receive reports from the different sections of its Department. The consolidation of reports by that unit was preceded by a 30-day period after the quarter ended where individual directorates would be allowed to compile their reports. At the end of the 30-days, which was end of July, there would be a quarterly strategic management review; where the management Committee would interrogate  the targets against the information provided as well as having the internal audit unit doing an audit of the different portfolios of evidence so as to verify the information. That process of verification and interrogation would finish late into August, after which the information would first go to the audit Committee meeting. Only after that could it be tabled before the Committee. It was like that across the board in State Departments and it would be delayed until the third quarter where a comparative analysis could be done as well. 

Mr Moemi said Mr Moteka's question was complex because globally teachers ran schools sport with DBE’s budgeting for that programme. In more affluent schools parents paid the so called sports levy, which was ring-fenced from a portion of the fees paid for tuition for equipment, participation in tournaments and even transportation to competitions. The dilemma in SA was that the DBE virtually did not budget for schools sport arguing that NT did not allocate such a budget for DBE to do the programme.

Committee Members that had been in the fourth parliament would recall that up until 2012, SRSA was only budgeting for code structures as that was part of its mandate. It had to fund federations and pay for the code Committees that organised school tournaments. The reason SRSA had decided in 2012 to take money meant for club development and community sport, which was for weekend tournaments outside of schools and team development in communities; and to divert it whilst also cancelling the SA games, was because it prioritised schools sport.

SRSA fought with NT in 2011 for it to agree to redirect that money into financing schools sport. That was because the sentiment was that if Government said that quintile 1 to quintile 3 schools were no fee paying schools, asking parents in those localities to pay a sports levy would be beyond their means; and that would mean there would be no sports in those schools.

The challenge was that there were the no weekend leagues for the same children that were playing sport in school, as there was no extra money for that at present.

Now DBE was asking NT to take the money which SRSA had redirected from its own meagre budget and give it to the DBE so it could deliver schools sport. Of course SRSA was crying foul, as that money had never been originally intended for the purpose it was serving; rather SRSA was closing a gap in recognition of the fact that DBE was carrying out its own mandate.

There was currently a dispute between the two departments because even the money for that programme being run by SRSA was inadequate. SRSA reported to the Committee that only 11 000 of the 24 000 schools in the country were participating in that programme. Only 3713 of those schools were the most affluent and they were all participating and were producing champions for SA; and that was only because their league system was working and the parents were paying.

Over and above that the reason behind SRSA wanting the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) was because the money it had for facilities was an amount of R10 million a year and SRSA was never intended to build facilities. SRSA originally had a Building for Sport and Recreation Grant that SRSA had been using to rollout facilities. That was taken and put under MIG where the Committee was aware of the challenges in the use of that money. Without those facilities poorer schools would have no access to sport.

In the DBEs current norms and standards; SRSA had engaged the DBE for two years in trying to get it to have in its norms and standards a provision saying when a school was built.  The norms from 2013 onwards would include that sport facilities would be the basic soccer pitch and a netball court as a start. However, SRSA was aware from its inspection of the Accelerated Infrastructure Delivery Programme for Schools Initiative (AcIDPSI) in the Eastern Cape that of the 18 new schools built after that 2013 new norms and standards agreed to; none of those schools had sport facilities.

SRSA received requests from schools and responded, but it could not reach all of them though that was a competency of DBE.

The Chairperson said she was being frustrated by the report from Mr Moemi because if DBE was being transparent it could have alluded to the fact that the reason behind their delay in providing for schools sport was that it wanted a budget from NT, separate from what they were already receiving.

Mr Moteka explained that his question was based on his recent meeting with the communities of Mampuru and Mohlala Royal Kraals in his constituency where, over and above 12 soccer teams that he looked after, there had also been 11 schools.  It had emerged there that athletes normally ran barefoot in their districts but when they went to the provincial competitions they were forced to run with shoes on. That affected their performance adversely. He had also written a request to Netball SA to adopt grassroots netball development. The biggest challenge was that even schools struggled with equipment and kit therefore SRSA had to expect requests in that regard.

Ms Manana applauded Mr Moteka's efforts but added that Members had to give information to communities when having meetings on how to access issues like funding from the National Lotteries Commission (NLC). Only when teams went beyond provincial competitions to national level could the national SRSA intervene if there were still shortcomings. If local clubs were affiliated members in their provinces, federations surely would take care of noted challenges by Mr Moteka, although she was not disputing the authenticity of the grievances.

Had SRSA managed to hold workshops with federations on the issues concerning funding?

How far was the process of establishing federations in the indigenous games sector? Had they provincial affiliates and were they registered as new federations under the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC)? In which provinces were there affiliates for those new federations?

Had SRSA managed to achieve its target of paying its service providers within 30 days?

The Chairperson said there was a second presentation that possibly would answer most of the questions raised.

Presentation 2 on SRSA Performance Quarter 1 of the 2015/16 Financial Year

Mr Moemi took the Committee through the presentation.
Programme 1: Administration: Achievements
Management: SRSA had provided strategic, administrative and logistical support to the SABC towards the re-launch of live Boxing broadcasting on TV on 12 June 2015. It had also managed to add development boxing to the broadcasting schedule as well, where there was rotation across the nine provinces for a live boxing match to be broadcast every last Friday of each month.

Programme 2: Active Nation: Achievements under Active Recreation & Community Sport:
Mr Moemi said SRSA had set itself a target of 10 000 participants for the Big Walk to be held on 4 October 2015 but, as of 18 September 2015 registered participants were already at 13 000 with 3000 more remaining forms. Because the Department would exceed its target it had decided to cap the number of participants at 16 000. Importantly all the nine provinces had confirmed active participation. Mpumalanga, North West and KwaZulu Natal (KZN) had already done district walks as build up to the Big Walk.

Programme 3: Winning Nation

Not Achieved: Submission of SASCOC MOU progress reports
SASCOC had said that it had challenges with submitting reports because of all the coordinating it had been doing for the Zone 6 Games, preparing team SA for the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), The Youth Africa Games in Botswana and preparation for the All Africa games. They would subsequently be able to do administrative work as of the 3rd quarter and submit those quarterly reports.

Mr Moemi replied that indeed the Department had held workshops with federations and that was an annual engagement; he had also met the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and administrators of all sport federations to discuss the financial funding framework for sporting bodies. SRSA had also met recreation bodies for the first time in that regard. The key issue was the capacity of smaller federations in accessing funding because volunteers generally ran them. SRSA had however, made the grant framework and reporting requirements much easier so as to make the process of accessing funding smoother for federations.

Regarding the Indigenous Games, two federations were recognised one of which was Mind Sport, which was responsible for Morabaraba. However, it was not in good standing with SASCOC and was suspended, as they had not attended Annual General Meetings for a while. Mind Sport had no provincial structures; however Jukskei was fully fledged with provincial structures. The other seven codes had National Coordinating Structures, which were interim Committees. SRSA was confident that possibly by 2016, it would have assisted all the seven with issues like draft constitutions and being on their way to being fully fledged structures. It would in all fairness take about three years for those federations to be fully functional.   

In terms of the DBE and NT not giving that Department money for schools sport, SRSA felt the DBE was simply being disingenuous. The reality was that NT would never increase DBEs allocation in such an economic down turn. There would be no schools sport games if SRSA had not insisted on NT giving it new money for that programme, which was why it had made tough choices and reprioritised certain allocations. That spoke to the fact that funding mostly went to tier one and two federations which also only received money for administration purposes. All had to source their own sponsorships by packaging their products well.

If one clustered schools sport with Arts and Culture (A&C), the chances were that a teacher in a school from a rural community with no sporting facilities and equipment would choose to do A&C. Even then that would be singing choral music, as it required only voices and nothing else. Sports was dying in that process as it was not compulsory, which was why SRSA had proposed and encouraged the DBE to amend the Schools Act to make sport and recreation compulsory. Only in private schools was sport compulsory since it was part of a schools prospectus. Additionally the fact that the schools governing bodies’ (SGBs) were now the deciders of which sports codes were played in public schools made the case worse because in very disadvantaged schools, SGBs simply disallowed the playing of any sport. The DBE simply had to have the will and commitment towards prioritising sport in schools; that was a reality.

Discussion
Mr Ntshayisa asked what happened to monies given to federations for grassroots developments as he had anecdotal evidence of embezzlement of funds; could SRSA try and investigate the money trails at those levels.

Mr Ralegoma asked for a brief update on matters concerning SRSA’s two entities; Boxing South Africa (BSA) and SA Institute for Drug-Free Sport (SAIDS), as they had not briefed the Committee about their first quarter performance.      

Hopefully SRSA’s stance was not to let club development suffer as the Committee had observed promising work in its recent oversight in KZN though there remained a complaint that the provincial SRSA there had transferred monies quite late.

Mr Ralegoma asked SRSA to speak about the lawsuits at BSA, which were a recurrent thing in the past? What was the status in terms of appointment of a CEO at BSA?

Ms Abrahams asked why it was such a challenge for SRSA to achieve its targets in programme two whilst there were people just wanting to participate in Active Nation. Were there still facilities that had been completed but which were awaiting handover ceremonies as the Minister’s unavailability had been cited as a challenge in handing over facilities to communities? She also asked when SRSA would set a date for the completion of:

• Sport and Recreation facility planning?
• The facilities audit and which provinces had actually completed one?
• Facilities database?

Was SRSA in a position to establish more outdoor gyms? If so, which provinces had been prioritised?

Mr Moteka was concerned about the delays in getting the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) back to SRSA; he suggested that an inquiry be held into how the sport component of the MIG had been reprioritised in municipalities for other purposes.

Mr Moemi said that where SRSA had found abuse of funds in federations the relevant federations had always been suspended together with transfer of allocations to said federations. SRSA relied on the auditors of federations to report wrong doings in the management of funds, which was why it always required, audited financial statements and a report of the previous year before it funded any federation. Additionally SRSA had increased its monitoring of federations, especially the key activities financed by SRSA’s allocations. SRSA’s internal audit unit had together with the Auditor-General South Africa (AGSA) for the first time audited the Sports Trust, Athletics South Africa (ASA), the South African rugby Union (SARU) and the South African Hockey Association (SAHA). Only ASA had findings in terms of funds management.

Regarding the roles of federations as per Mr Ralegoma’s concerns; Mr Moemi responded that the Committee was aware that in terms of SRSA’s new grant framework, it had linked the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) outcomes to what federations were supposed to do. There were two tiers of funding in that framework; the guaranteed funding tier for administration and the conditional tier where the conditions were that federations had to do club development and to show a disaggregated portfolio of evidence for schools, community and elite sport levels. That information was being used to influence SRSA’s decisions on funding of all the 16 priority codes.

SRSA had stabilised BSA’s woes as lawsuits had not materialised after it had prepared a full legal team in preparation for any further litigation. Boxing had however, returned to television and possibly the legal team had been a deterrent to would be lawsuits against BSA seeing that SRSA had previously told the Committee that it had allocated R20 million for litigation in that regard in its previous financial year. NT had topped up BSA baseline by R5 million in the 2015/16 financial year and would do so again for the 2016/17 financial year in SRSA’s attempt to stabilise BSA’s baseline. There had not been any new lawsuits and all BSA’s debtors had been paid however, SRSA had had to fire almost all the senior leadership at the entity.  BSA’s board had prepared interviews so far to fill the position of CEO, junior official positions had all been filled and the Chief Operations Officer (COO) had resigned voluntarily and that had allowed SRSA space and speed to move BSA forward. The COO and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) positions were currently being filled since the CFO had also been fired.

In terms of challenges in achieving targets in the Active Nation programme; participation was not only about having warm bodies partaking in an event. There was the issue of logistics, planning and timing of an event. If it were raining on a day for a planned event certainly then people would not come out in the projected numbers. Certainly that target was not something SRSA always struggled to achieve; in the previous year it had achieved all its targets except the facilities audit. The Department was confident it would achieve its targeted numbers in the Active Nation programme as some of its mass participation events were in the subsequent quarters.

All facilities had been handed over with duties to open all of them having been handed over to the Deputy Minister, Mr Gert Oosthuizen.

In terms of the facilities audit SRSA had decided to do a facilities count instead as it had no capacity for an audit. KZN and the Western Cape (WC) had both completed their counts. Gauteng had also started counting whereby SRSA would be sending some of its senior managers to support those provinces that were struggling to start counting however, the Northern Cape (NC), Mpumalanga and the North West (NW) had not started counting.     

SRSA was still rolling out two outdoor gyms per province where the sites for establishment were chosen by provinces. Additionally, metropolitan municipalities at the metros forum had agreed that they would also roll out three gyms in their own financial year cycle.

In terms of the MIG, SRSA had commissioned an investigative study on its use in KZN where it had found that only 4% of the allocated 15% MIG allocation actually went to sport infrastructure. That trend could be found all over the country and the culprits for such misdemeanours were the municipal managers. Certainly Mr Moteka could go and open a criminal case against said individuals after following a money trail in that regard.

Mr Moemi then addressed the issue of the criminal case against Mr Danny Jordaan regarding the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) corruption investigation. It was misleading to say the SA Government had done nothing in that regard. For the Government to investigate anyone in SA there needed to be prima facie case however, the State did not have the evidence that others were claiming to have. When the allegations surfaced from the Attorney General (AG) of the United States (USA) the proper thing to do was to clarify SA’s stance on the matter. The State said it had not been aware of any bribe having been paid and anyone that had proof of such dealings needed to come forward so that the matter could be pursued. There were engagements with the officials of Government and former Local Organising Committee (LOC) members from 2010 to find out whether there was any truth to what was been alleged. That had yielded nothing and SRSA had then decided it would request the AG through diplomatic channels to hand over the evidence

SA shared diplomatic ties to the extent of a special agreement between the two countries on mutual assistance on criminal matters. Beyond that extradition treaty the Departments of Justice of the two countries had also signed an agreement that went to share assistance between the Hawks and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). Those agreements had been used interchangeably between the two countries administratively without there having been media frenzy about said exchanges.

With the FBI saying they had been investigating corruption at FIFA for 22 years how had it missed Mr Charlie Dempsey and if everyone accepted that the Soccer World Cups (SWCs) had been bought and FIFA was corrupt: how was it that Germany and France were not collateral damage as SA was? Especially when the FBI had said it had evidence that the French SWC had been bought.

Having then asked the AG for the evidence since the procedure was already known all that the Department of Justice and Correctional Services (DJCS) had received was a letter from the US’s Justice Department apologising for the indictment appearing on newspapers before it had been given to the DJCS. Even that indictment was a hearsay matter where Mr Chuck Blazer had alleged that Mr Jack Warner was corrupt. Mr Blazer alleged that he knew that because Mr Warner’s nephew had told him that he had gone to Paris from suspect number 16 (South African). If indeed there was evidence that all that had happened then it was for 16 to account but until the Government had evidence before it there was nothing it could do.

Committee report on Petition from Residents of Orlando East  

Mr Ralegoma said that though he had read the petition the issue that the site was a heritage site was not necessarily factual. Moreover the Committee never really engaged with the petition but had rather recommended as stated in the report; that it be returned to the Speaker of the House so that the Gauteng Legislature and the City of Johannesburg metro would deliberate on the matter. If then the two institutions were still not responsive, only then would the Committee entertain the petition provided the petitioners would be present together with the City, the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) so as to have all sides of that story.

The Committee Secretary said that the petition as recommended would have returned to the Speaker anyhow, and therefore the Committee did not need to recommend.

The Chairperson maintained that the report was a response to the Speaker and therefore the recommendations were not supposed to be problematic.

Committee report on CGE report
Ms Manana said she did not recall the Committee commenting on the lack of response from South African Football Association (SAFA) in terms of giving recognition to South African Women's Football Association (SAWFA). She remembered asking whether SAWFA would be under SAFA and whether it was not affiliated already. The sentiment of the Committee had been that it required a response from SAFA over the CGE report.

Mr Ralegoma recalled making several inputs on that report. Firstly that it had been a response to a complaint by SAWFA against SAFA and it would be disingenuous for the Committee in its own report to say that indeed there was apparent slow gender transformation at SAFA only, without speaking about gender transformation being addressed across all federations. SAFA was the better federation in terms of gender equality. Secondly only Mr Malatsi had proof about salary disparities between the men’s and women’s national teams and why they existed. The Committee still had to be taken into confidence as to why that was so by SAFA. He did not want to be associated with non-factual statements because the ANC was a leader on gender equality matters. It would be better for the report to say that the Committee had observed the CGE recommendations but the current draft report of the Committee did not need to be so harsh in its recommendations.    

The Chairperson emphasised that the Committee had agreed that it had heard one side of that story from the CGE’s report.

Mr S Malatsi (DA) said the important thing for him was what the CGE report had reported. The summation of that report was the engagements that the CGE had had with SAFA and what outcomes had resulted from there. He did not see anything unfounded about the recommendations in the Committee’s report on the briefing by the CGE as all that was in the Committee’s report was what the Committee had discussed.

Mr Ntshayisa also remembered the discussion at the briefing by the CGE to speak to the draft recommendations before the Committee. However, if some Members felt that was not so then that could be deliberated.

Mr Teboho Thebehae, Content Adviser, said the draft report of the Committee dealt with what members had raised during the briefing. And while it would seem reflective of other issues raised; others would have been left out as well such as those that related to rugby and cricket as the CGE report was based on soccer related complaint. It would be inappropriate to respond to a particular report in a generalised fashion as the draft report had to respond to the CGE briefing as well. Unless the Committee felt that it did not want to respond to matters from the CGE briefing as they had been reported but rather felt that it observed the CGE recommendations but they would be addressed through the Eminent Persons Group (EPG). Mr Thebehae felt what the draft report was saying were actually Statements that had been made by the Committee. 

The Chairperson said the Committee staff had been selective in what recommendations to include in the draft report.

Mr Malatsi supported Mr Ntshayisa’s sentiments that if some Members felt that there were issues left out of the recommendations then it would be better to have a conversation about that rather than a conversation of inaccuracies on views and how language was used.

Mr Ralegoma said his discomfort was with the title of the draft report and if it could be amended to specify that it was a report on a briefing reporting the outcomes of hearings with SAFA on a complaint by SAWFA.

He reiterated his discomfort with the language used in some recommendations and the authenticity of some. The way the draft was worded would in future make federations become reluctant to come before the Committee.

Mr Moteka agreed with Mr Ntshayisa that the draft report as it was reflected what the Committee had actually deliberated on at that briefing by the CGE.

The Chairperson said the draft report needed to be rewritten to the satisfaction of all members.

Mr Thebehae said it would be useful that Members state which recommendations left out from the CGE briefing needed to be included. He attempted to reword the recommendations, which made some Members uncomfortable. He asked that the Committee resolve to remove some recommendations.

Mr Malatsi said the deliberation had the potential to deviate the attention of the draft from the core issue of gender equality at SAFA, because the semantics about the title of the draft could not be confused with what the Committee had actually deliberated on after the briefing by the CGE. If the Committee felt that it would want to include in its recommendations that on the basis of what CGE had reported it would want to know how far other federations were in respect of gender equality that could be done. He had mentioned the pay disparities between female and male footballers in the national team based on SRSA documentation and the CEO of CGE had in fact corroborated that matter in response to a question that day.

Mr Moteka proposed that when a Chapter Nine institution came to present investigation findings to the Committee those who would have been investigated needed to be present to avoid the kind of discussion where some Members spoke on behalf of others that were not present.

The Chairperson cautioned Members against making remarks that alluded to other Members speaking in protection of political parties or having double mandates. She asked if it would not make better sense to have SAFA to come and brief the Committee.

Ms Abrahams said it was not problematic for declarations to be made in the House but to do them because one had not been afforded a chance to correct what they wanted to have corrected at Committee level should not be encouraged.

Mr Malatsi said that his mentioning of declarations was not done maliciously however, if members felt that any other input was not encapsulated in the report those could be said during declaration as that was a common practice of Parliament. If on the basis of fairness the Committee wanted to engage SAFA on the CGE report then SAWFA also had to be afforded that opportunity to speak with the Committee for a conclusive decision on the matter. Seeing that all the Members were passionate about gender transformation it was healthy for such a robust engagement to have occurred, as transformation was a key strategic objective of the Committee’s work.

Ms Manana supported Mr Malatsi’s proposal that SAFA be called before the Committee.

The Chairperson agreed that indeed the two bodies; SAWFA and SAFA had to be called before the Committee. Therefore the Committees draft report would not be adopted that day.

Adoption of minutes    

Minutes of Committee meeting held on 9 September 2015 were adopted without amendment.  

The meeting was adjourned.