National Schools Sports Championship & 3rd Quarter Performance for 2015/16: Department briefing

Meeting report

Briefing by the Department of Sport and Recreation SA (SRSA) on the National Schools Sport Championship
The delegation from the SRSA comprised of amongst others Mr Alec Moem, Director General; Mr Lesedi Mere, Chief Financial Officer (CFO); and Mr Tsholofelo Lejaka, Chief Director: Corporate Services.

Mr Moemi undertook the briefing. He said that much of what was to be presented to the Committee in the meeting had already been dealt with. The current work of the SRSA was just a continuation of its previous efforts. Areas of successes and challenges would be highlighted. The SRSA had learnt many lessons from the inaugural Championship in 2012 up until the present. The SRSA had grown the Championship to where it was now. All 16 Priority Codes participated in the Championship including amateur boxing. The 2015 Championship took place from 11-15 December 2015 at the University of Pretoria. The stakeholders were national departments of sport and basic education, provincial departments of sport and basic education, national and provincial federations, Nestle (Milo), Love-life, the Sports Trust and the South African Institute on Drug free Sports (SAIDS). The Local Organising Committee comprised of the partners i.e. SRSA and the Department of Basic Education (DBE), Gauteng Province Sport and DBE officials, provincial federations, the Sports Trust and Love-life. The Committee was provided with detail on the 2015 Championships itself. It included statistics on the numbers of athletes, coaches and managers that had participated. Members were also provided with insight into how teams were broken down. Detail was also provided on the administration of the event such as provincial teams having to be registered by the end of October 2015. A list of playing venues for the various sporting codes was also provided. Accommodation for participating learners and their managers was at the University of Pretoria residences, whilst technical officials and national federation representatives were accommodated at selected hotels. Information on medical and safety and security services was also provided. The Committee was also given a breakdown of the final results by provinces at the championship as well as the number of medals that each province had won. The way ahead after the 2015 Championship was that the Local Organising Committee held a debriefing workshop on 13 February 2016 for all provincial team representatives, national federations and sport code committees. Planning had started in earnest for the three season National Championship, which was starting in March 2016 for primary and high schools respectively. The intention was to develop a four-year cycle for National, Continental and International Championships. Funding needed to be secured for the aforementioned championships.

Discussion
Mr S Ralegoma (ANC) was concerned about inter-schools and district competitions. How was it going to be structured? How were township schools impacted upon? He had observed national championships but wished to observe district championships. He asked how district and national championships were going to be streamlined. Would these championships not cause disruptions in schools?

Mr Moemi said that the SRSA tried to align the calendars of various federations. This had been going on for two years but there was resistance from federations. It was important to have one championship for one country. Championships were segregated and only affluent schools attended them. Only students whose parents could pay for their colours took part in championships. The SRSA was ring-fencing funds to achieve this. Parallel championships took place because executives were out to make huge profits. Parent federations should take responsibility. The SRSA for example provided funds for netball to Netball SA and not to SA Schools Netball. The Department of Basic Education (DBE) was under the belief that it should fund school structures. Calendars of federations needed to be aligned in order to benefit both affluent and township schools. tThe government league and the independent leagues ran parallel to each other. This was unacceptable and there was movement towards a single league.  

Mr D Bergman (DA) said a survey was needed on schools sports championships. The Auditor General of SA’s Office had stated that a survey had been done. There were many people involved in sports and hence the manner in which tournaments was run. A survey would give an indication of successes and weaknesses. The Committee wished to see highlights of the National Schools Sports Championships. What were the weaknesses of the Championship? The schools should provide the sports people and the SRSA should provide the coaches.

Mr Moemi stated that the SRSA had spoken to the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) about doing a survey. The Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) was also asked to do it and looked to be the better option. The last full survey was done by UNICEF in 2012. The 2012 survey had resulted in key lessons to be learnt. He agreed that the SRSA should provide coaches and the schools the students. The SRSA had funded Sports Coaches Outreach (SCORE), which was a Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) for the past five years. SCORE was given funds by the SRSA to train 5000 teachers as coaches per year. It was a struggle to train teachers as coaches but inroads were being made. The international norm of 1 coach for every 14 students had been adopted by the SRSA. It would be a while before the ratio was attained in SA. 

Mr L Ntshayisa (AIC) asked what the status of world school sports was. He asked what the turnaround time for applications by schools in rural areas to register with the sports league was.

Mr Moemi confirmed that there were registrations with the league in rural areas but most of the participation took place in urban areas. There were barriers to participation like limited funding and lack of facilities and lack of sports clothes. The SRSA had measures in place to mitigate the barriers. The important issue was about quality of delivery. A target of 500 schools had been set but 600 schools had been achieved. If the SRSA was at a school it only went back to the school 7-8 years later. Impact needed to be made. The SRSA, the Presidency and National Treasury had sat down to bring down the target from 4000 to 3000. The SRSA needed better access to schools. The SRSA had to revise most of its targets in its Annual Performance Plan. Schools sports in rural areas were a challenge. Most of the SRSA’s work was at rural schools. The SRSA already had a plan for the delivery of equipment and attire to schools. President Zuma and the Minister of Sports Mr Fikile Mbalula had both agreed that delivery must take place to 3000 schools. Schools had to be registered on the government league. They also had to specify for which sport they were registering. Differentiation had to be made between high schools and primary schools. Age categories and the size of the school were taken into consideration. By either September 2016 or October 2016 the analysis would be finalised and then orders would be placed. In December 2016 deliveries would begin and by January 2017 schools would receive equipment. The AGSA asked for a list of the equipment received by a school and the document had to be signed by the particular school.   

Mr M Malatsi (DA) asked why the Northern Cape had only obtained one medal in the National Schools Sport Championship. Were sports teams ready for the Championship in the Northern Cape? Could it be that teams were unprepared in the Northern Cape? The SRSA was asked how it provided support to those areas that needed it. How did the SRSA deal with shortcomings?

Mr Moemi said that the Northern Cape Province had a sorry state of affairs. It had equitable share challenges. The Province was economically deprived. It raised very little revenue. To make matters worse it had a small population, which meant it received limited resources. The Northern Cape Province made up 33% of SA’s land mass, which was huge, but unfortunately had sheer poverty. If the SRSA strictly followed the equitable share then the Northern Cape Province would receive R8m, which was inadequate. The SRSA discussed the matter with National Treasury and agreement was reached to give each province a baseline of R20m. This decision upset some of the better resourced provinces like Gauteng Province. Children in the Northern Cape had no access to sports. The SRSA only used the equitable share formula to make allocations on the remainder of the funds after each province was allocated the initial R20m. The Northern Cape Province was however doing much better. The Province with the biggest success story was the Free State. It was always ranked sixth amongst provinces on schools sport but it had moved up to position four. 

Mr P Moteka (EFF) noted that the most resourced provinces gained the most medals at the Championship. He observed that the poorest and most corrupt provinces received the least medals. He suggested that the SRSA assist the poorest provinces. 

Ms D Manana (ANC) pointed out that her Province Mpumalanga was sixth on the medal tally list but stressed that Mpumalanga was not corrupt.

The Chairperson asked members not to go into labelling provinces as being corrupt. The word corrupt needed to be qualified. Some provinces could be offended.

Mr Moteka responded that he had not mentioned provinces by name.

The Chairperson said that mention was made of provinces on the bottom of the medal tally list as being corrupt. No names needed to be mentioned as the list named them.

Mr Moteka stated that he would rather focus on those provinces on the top part of the medal tally list. These he said were rich provinces. The poorer provinces were not well funded. He commended Love-life for the great work that it did. Love-life was a very accessible entity.

Mr Moemi noted that the SRSA had held seminars with Love-life. Children were given opportunities to meet sporting champions. Love-life had streamlined their efforts. The SRSA worked well with them.

The Chairperson said the Committee was experiencing time constraints at the present meeting. The bottom line was that the SRSA had an inadequate budget. The Committee would push for the budget of the SRSA to be increased. National Treasury needed to listen to the Committee. The SRSA was using its R1bn budget as best it could. It was unfortunate that MIG funds were being misused. She was pleased that the SRSA was getting an additional R1bn. She asked how mergers were going to take place given that there was one federation per sporting code.

Mr Moemi explained that there was R1bn that was the normal budget of the SRSA. There was not an additional R1bn.The only additional funds that the SRSA received were R6m to appoint technical people.
The SRSA was running a pilot project with the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA). A total of R300m had been budgeted by National Treasury for the pilot and the intention was to have 32 projects across 30 municipalities. The COGTA was in charge of the funds and would fund approved projects. The SRSA would have to come up with the programmes. Once the R300m was spent additional funds would be requested from National Treasury. When the municipal financial year started in June 2016 then projects would commence. A sports federation was a recognised body for that code of sport. For example the South African Football Association (SAFA) was in charge of football. The option in football was for the SA Schools Football Association (SASFA) to be funded by SAFA. With the new system the parent federation should take responsibility for the substructure.  Hockey on the other hand chose not to have a schools hockey body. There would rather be a person at Hockey SA that liaised with schools. Cricket SA also followed this route. Schools cricket people would work for Cricket SA. The main thing was that schools sports should not suffer.

The Chairperson stated that the Committee was pleased with the pilot project. She was concerned that the COGTA could not account to the Committee how funds had been spent in the Free State Province. The R300m was a good start but was not nearly enough. She was also concerned that Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) funds were not spent on sports and recreation. The Committee was unhappy about the SRSA being undermined. It hampered the work of the SRSA in rural areas. The problem was that MIG funding was being used for other things.

Mr Moemi said it would only be useful to look at the performance of the SRSA for Quarter 3 but even then the SRSA had already overtaken the Quarter’s events. National Treasury had norms set for departments to spend certain percentages of their budgets by certain quarters. SRSA’s patterns never followed norms. The bulk of the SRSA’s programmes took place in Quarter 3. Most of the SRSA’s Administration Programme’s targets were met in Quarter 4.

SRSA Quarter 3 Performance Report for 2015/16
Mr Moemi briefed the Committee on the SRSA’s Quarter 3 Performance Report for 2015/16. The Report reflected progress made to date against key strategic objectives and annual performance indicators as reflected in the SRSA’s Annual Performance Plan (APP). Performance as per SRSA’s Programmes was presented.
Programme 1: Administration - There were four targets to be achieved for the Quarter under review. Two targets were not achieved and two were achieved. Marketing and communication and performance information on Quarter 3 targets had not been achieved.
Programme 2: Active Nation - In total there were seven targets to be achieved by the Programme for the Quarter under review. Five targets were not achieved and two targets were achieved. Targets relating to community sport opportunities to communities and provincial sport support and coordination had not been achieved.
Programme 3: Winning Nation -The Programme had to achieve six targets. Four targets were achieved and two were not achieved. On scientific support services coordinated, a target involving the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) had not been achieved. The SASCOC progress report had not been received and evaluated as per its Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the SRSA. The SRSA had contacted the SASCOC over the report and a meeting was held on the 3 February 2016 in this regard. The SRSA had not transferred funds to the SASCOC pending the receipt of the report. The SRSA had issues of none compliance with the SASCOC for some time. The SRSA would send the funds back to National Treasury if the SASCOC did not submit the report as was required. The other target not achieved in the Quarter was that no major events were supported by the SRSA.
Programme 4: Sports Support - Four targets were set for the Quarter under review. Three targets were
achieved and one was not achieved. The target not achieved related to five federations not receiving funding due to none compliance. The funds had been reallocated to federations who had complied. 
Programme 5: Infrastructure Support -The Programme had a single target and it was achieved. If the SRSA was successful in winning the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) debate then the Programme would be its biggest.
Overall performance for Quarter 3 was twelve out of twenty two targets that had been achieved. Performance for the SRSA was thus 55% but it was expected to improve in Quarter 4.
 
Discussion
The Chairperson pointed out the Committee had interacted with SASCOC the previous week and was told of its good story. The SASCOC had informed Members that it did its own fundraising.

Mr S Ralegoma (ANC) was concerned about what happened to the Nelson Mandela Sport and Culture Day Programme. It was supposed to have been hosted jointly with the Department of Arts and Culture (DAC). Was the Programme in the National Development Plan (NDP)? He asked the SRSA what the plan regarding the Programme was. SA needed programmes on nation building. Programmes needed to be aligned with the NDP. There were serious implications on the SASCOC given that it was an Olympic year. The Committee needed to guard against national sporting bodies being privatised. Non-compliance could not be allowed. It was important that SASCOC had to comply just as any other statutory bodies were required to. He asked how far the facilities count was to completion. He understood that some of the provinces had completed their facilities count.

Mr Moemi pointed out that the Nelson Mandela Sport and Culture Day was not totally cancelled. It would be back in 2016/17. It would coexist with the Rural Sporting Programme. The SRSA had unfortunately reached budget saturation. The SRSA did not have new programmes. President Zuma had instructed the SRSA to support sports at rural schools. The SRSA had to re-evaluate its work. On facilities count he noted that an audit was needed. The SRSA had done a facilities audit for three years and had realised that capacity was lacking to do justice to it. The SRSA had gone down to provinces to lend assistance. In urban provinces like Gauteng it was easier to do a facilities count. In rural areas it was more of a struggle. There was a great deal of non-compliance. Only after the SRSA had agreed on a pilot were provinces prompted to comply. Since then six provinces had completed a facilities count. Three provinces were outstanding. The Northern Cape Province was the biggest challenge. The Northern Cape seriously lacked the funds to do a facilities audit. A deadline had been set for 31 March 2016. Once the facilities count was completed then there would be a figure on how many facilities were in SA. An audit on specifics of facilities was also needed like for example what size facilities were. The SRSA staggered to finish the audit in 4-5 years. 

Mr Moteka said that members were in contact with schools sports organisers and the stories they shared were terrible. School kids had to borrow each other’s running shoes. Organisations like SAFA as well as government did not support kids on the ground. The presentation spoke about the performance of the SRSA being at 55%. It was not good enough unless the SRSA expected to save itself by Quarter 4.

Mr Moemi was aware of the difficulties that school kids went through regarding sports attire and equipment. The SRSA nevertheless encouraged participation. He said that as a school kid he had run barefoot and been forced to make do. Unfortunately government interventions could not reach everyone. He was not too concerned that for Quarter 3 performance was 55%. The SRSA was more concerned about how it finished at the end of Quarter 4. In Quarter 4 the SRSA mostly closed up on its administrative targets. He noted that the SRSA had in the previous financial year achieved 95% performance. The performance at the end of Quarter 4 would be much more than 55%.

Mr Malatsi noted that the SASCOC had informed the Committee that they were waiting on funding from the SRSA. The SRSA was saying something else regarding the funding to the SASCOC. What was the true situation? The SASCOC had also disputed figures on the training of coaches. All federations had to abide to the Sports and Recreation Act. He felt it correct by the SRSA to withhold the SASCOC’s funds if there was none compliance. It was an emerging trend by the SASCOC not to abide to government protocols. The SASCOC was becoming a delinquent federation. The situation was unacceptable. He stated that often times federations complain that they were not funded. Federations were not pro-active in approaching the SRSA. He noted that Mr Moemi had committed himself to assist federations with compliance. The SRSA was asked to inform the Committee about federations that did not comply. Support structures out there had to be utilised.

Mr Moemi noted that for a long time the SASCOC was the be-it-all for sport in SA. Government had agreed to bring all sports under one confederation. Government had inadvertently given some of its power away. The SASCOC was a sports federation and an Olympic Committee. The SASCOC covered everything and was even a member of the International Sports Federation. A super structure was thus created. The SASCOC assimilated more power than what it was intended to have. The SASCOC even issued approval letters to federations to host sports events and thereafter it slapped government with the bill. It was difficult for government to claw the power back. The battle was ongoing and there was gross discomfort. The SASCOC wished government to focus on development but to leave high performance to them. The SRSA needed to hold the SASCOC accountable on how it used funds. The SASCOC was of the opinion that high performance and academies should be left to them. The context needed to be understood. The SASCOC had told the Committee that they were waiting for funds from the SRSA. What they had not told the Committee was what was required of them to obtain the funds. The SRSA had asked the SASCOC what high performance athletes they were supporting. In 2014 the SASCOC had only received funds in the third week of March 2014 due to them only submitting their report by the second week of March 2014. The SASCOC even wished to stipulate the number of medals that SA was expected to win at a sports event like an Olympics. The SRSA felt that the Minister of Sport should stipulate the medal count that SA should win. At the London Olympics the SASCOC had stipulated that twelve medals were expected to be won by SA. The SRSA had also done its own analysis of other countries and had expected five medals to be won. The SRSA had been spot on. The SRSA had set a target of eight medals for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. The report that was outstanding from the SASCOC was on what its plan for Rio was.

Ms Manana was concerned about infrastructure support. She asked what the challenges were on performing facilities audits. She also asked how much resources had been set aside for the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) to hold federations accountable. The SRSA asked in which provinces the Winning Nation Programme had been implemented successfully. What challenges were faced?  On the Active Nation Programme she asked which provinces had received equipment. The SRSA was also asked why it could not host the Nelson Mandela Sports and Culture Day. What was the issue? Were there funding or planning constraints? The SRSA on its Administration Programme was asked how the internal audit had assisted Boxing SA.

Mr Moemi, on EPG funding, said that there was enough funding. The number of codes had been expanded to sixteen. The SRSA would also be signing a transformation agreement with eleven other codes in 2016. The SRSA would send the Committee a list with specifics on where attire and equipment had been provided in provinces. The internal audit support to Boxing SA was the same as was always given. He noted that Boxing SA had challenges and one of them was to appoint a Chief Executive Officer. A Chief Financial Officer had been appointed and lower posts had been filled. 

Ms B Abrahams (ANC) asked what action could be taken against the SASCOC.

Mr Ntshayisa asked how the SRSA evaluated its programmes. He was concerned that the vacancy rate of the SRSA was still high. How did the SRSA intend to fill vacancies? He asked what was the SRSA doing about outstanding invoices from entities and about its slow spending. The SRSA was doing nothing on its Infrastructure Support Programme. Was the SRSA waiting on the COGTA to do something about the issue of MIG Funding or was funding not enough.

Mr Lejaka noted that the vacancy rate of 29% had to be considered in its context. The SRSA was going through an organisational review. The SRSA had an envisaged structure and certain posts were still seen in the new structure. Additional posts had to be created and hence the vacancy rate seemed high. The organisational review was in its third year and would be complete by the first quarter of the new financial year. It was expected that the vacancy rate would drop to 14%. The SRSA was aware that it had to go easy on recruitment, as it perhaps did not have sufficient funds.

Mr Moemi added that the problem came in when vacancies were counted even though it was not needed as yet. This meant that the vacancy rate seemed high. New employees would be reflected in the new structure. It looked as if the employee count was 169 when it was not really 169. Under the old structure the employee count was supposed to be 219. The new structure could now be loaded on Personnel Salary System (PERSAL). New posts would be reflected and the vacancy rate would be 14%. National Treasury had cautioned the SRSA not to hire more people than what it could afford to pay.

The Chairperson said that the Committee was concerned that the restructuring of the SRSA took three years. She noted that the Select Committee on Appropriations and National Treasury had observed that there was poor spending on the Infrastructure Support Programme and that there was a trend by the SRSA to transfer funds from the Programme to other Programmes. The trend was expected to continue if plans were not put in place.

Mr Moemi agreed that the observations by the Select Committee on Appropriations were correct. The SRSA had been engaging on the MIG funding issue and kept funds on hand in case the MIG funds came through. He explained that when the end of the financial year was approaching and the MIG funding was not expected to come through then the SRSA applied to National Treasury to move the funds to where it was needed. Now that the SRSA had a model in place funds would not be moved elsewhere. The funds would be needed for the appointment of engineers. The Select Committee on Appropriations was unaware of the SRSA’s plans and should in the future feel free to enquire about it. He understood that if one was unaware of the context of things then things looked terrible. The fact was that the SRSA was actually being prudent and things were not as bad as they looked. The SRSA had since 2012 been setting funds aside for the appointment of people in case the MIG funding came through. If it looked as if no MIG funds was coming through then the funds set aside was transferred with National Treasury approval to where it was needed. 

SRSA Quarter 3 Financial Report for 2015/16
The SRSA briefed the Committee on its Quarter 3 Financial Report for 2015/16. Mr Mere undertook the briefing. In the interest of time the briefing was kept short.

The Committee was given insight into the financials of the SRSA for Quarter 3. Overall spending for the Quarter sat at R720.1m, which represented 73% of the SRSA’s total budget allocation. Figures were provided on the expenditure per economic classification as well as on what the budget per Programme was.

Discussion
Ms Manana said that if the invoices of the SRSA’s service providers were not up to standard she asked whether the SRSA trained them.

Mr Lejaka said that minimum standards had to be adhered to on invoices. It was about attention to detail. Things like dates etc were missing from invoices. The SRSA would conduct workshops to train service providers.

The Chairperson asked that the SRSA be patient with its service providers and capacitate them.

Mr Moemi said that the SRSA took the payment of its service providers within 30 days seriously. Paying your service providers too quickly could also raise eyebrows. A fair period within which to pay was within a week. On invoices he said that sometimes there were complex issues. For example the wrong goods could have been sent and had already been paid for by the SRSA.

The Committee agreed that the SRSA would brief the Committee on the rest of the agenda items at a later time given time constraints.

The meeting was adjourned.