Boxing SA, South African Institute for Drug-Free Sport & Department of Sport and Recreation 2016 Strategic & Annual Performance Plan

Meeting report

Boxing South Africa (BSA)  Annual Performance Plan and Strategic Plan for 2015/16-2019/20
Ms Muditambi Ravele, Chairperson, Boxing SA, took the Committee through the Strategic Plan document (see attached document for all details).

She highlighted the strategic objectives. BSA had published a paper indicating which of the many international sanctioning bodies it desired to work with. In terms of Women in Boxing, BSA, for the first time ,had appointed a women’s commission to assist female boxers with direct contact to the board as BSA had identified that there were quite a lot of challenges facing those athletes.

The following were described as the 2016/17 deliverables:
- On Governance and Administration: Ms Ravele said that the board was meeting even more than was planned and projected as a result of trying to revive the reputation of both BSAs and boxing in general
- In terms of boxing promotion,  BSA had the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) on board in relation to television rights, and broadcasting some matches. BSA’s board was advocating to senior management that the entity had to lobby e-tv as well; seeing that the broadcaster had indicated some interest recently.

Discussion
Mr S Mabika (NFP) asked whether BSA was aware about the challenges in the Eastern Cape (EC) between two boxing associations fighting for legitimacy.

Mr S Malatsi (DA) said he was interested in the organisational structure being aligned to the Strategic Plan of BSA since he noted that the Plan was focusing on marketing and promotion of boxing as an alternative avenue that could generate revenue. He did not see a post in BSA’s organogram that was linked to such marketing and communication. He asked what current alternative avenues were BSA pursuing, or that might be in the pipeline for revenue generation. He asked at what stage was the appointment of a Chief Executive Officer (CEO)? Could further details be given about the SABC broadcasting partnership with BSA and the Department of Sport and Recreation (SRSA), and whether that had strengthened the financial position of BSA?

He added that the Committee also needed an indication of what sponsorships were in the pipeline, apart from deals that were still in negotiations. Moreover, he wanted detail on the appoint of a commissioner for women’s boxing. He pointed out that there were also female boxing officials and administrators to be considered. He asked if the commissioner would have a credible gender empowerment strategy so that that appointment would actually be useful and not a burden.

Mr P Moteka (EFF) said he wanted to hear about BSA’s development initiatives in provinces other than Eastern (EC) and Western Cape (WC), and Gauteng.

Mr L Ntshayisa (AIC) asked whether BSA was not involved in safeguarding the health, safety and general
well-being of amateur boxers as its mission statement specifically spoke about professional boxers only.  He also wanted to know what practical development initiatives was BSA running in schools?

Ms D Manana (ANC) commended BSA’s work, since there had been leadership change, as she had observed some boxing events in various provinces except her own province of Mpumalanga. Possibly BSA needed to alert the Committee when it would be having boxing events so that members could observe the work of the entity. On the 2014/15 SP, BSA had had three directorship vacancies and she asked if these had those been filled in the year under review? She wanted BSA to speak to the large difference in numbers of female boxers compared to males, and to that of female boxing officials as well?

Ms Ravele replied that BSA was quite aware about the parallel structures in the EC and together with the Minister of SRSA and the Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Sport, Recreation, Arts and Culture in that province; had approached these structures to try and resolve the matter. The structures had requested permission to have a joint Annual General Meeting (AGM). Hopefully that matter would be resolved as it was a priority for BSA.

Regarding the exclusion of a marketing and communication position on BSA’s organogram, Ms Ravele said the entity was delaying the inclusion of that position because it wanted to ensure it would have the revenue to remunerate the position, as it was unaffordable now. In the interim she was assisting with the marketing and communication aspect at BSA. BSA had submitted an application to both SRSA and the National Treasury (NT) to appoint a Chief Executive Officer, and was currently awaiting a response from the two Departments.

She said that BSA had improved its revenue collection as it had realised that its licensees had owed the entity quite a sum of money. Indeed the SABC partnership had strengthened BSA’s financial position because it currently knew how much the broadcaster would be paying a promoter so that it could claim its percentage accordingly.

There was not much BSA could sell from its side as events were organised by promoters, but there were a few sponsors that would want to sponsor the belts. In addition, BSA was unwilling to sell for less than others. It was looking at how to leverage SABC’s coverage of its events so that it could put good value for money for its products.

The campaign that BSA was running for female boxing was funded by the National Lotteries Commission (NLC). BSA had had a workshop with all female licensees, female promoters, female boxing officials, female trainers and female boxers in December 2015. Though there had been resolutions from that session BSA had identified that there were more serious problems for female boxers that needed urgent attention. Some of those issues were of a social nature needing psychological remedies. In the March 2016 workshop with female stakeholders, sport psychologists discovered quite a few issues that BSA had to follow up. By March 2016 BSA had increased the number of female promoters and officials, which spoke to an improved throughput in the gender empowerment strategy of BSA. All of that culminated in the appointment of a women’s commission.

In terms of boxing development there two structures in the country, namely BSA and South African National Boxing Organisation (SANABO). SANABO had structures at district and local levels. BSA was more concerned with professional boxing and had to ensure that there was professional boxing in all provinces. The entity was doing quite well in that regard as its "Boxing is Back" campaign was showing, as alluded to by Ms Manana. Indeed BSA had been to all provinces except Limpopo and North West where their respective tournaments had been postponed. The Director-General (DG) of SRSA had held a session with BSA and SANABO trying to forge working relationships between the two bodies so that there could be improved throughput between amateur boxing and professional boxing.

Mr Alec Moemi, Director-General, SRSA said that the Department had declared boxing one of the 16 priority sporting codes in SA for communities and schools sport. As the Committee was aware. the Department of Basic Education (DBE) in 2001 adopted a law that prohibited combat sports at schools. Only in 2015, for the first time, could children of school going age participate in the National Schools Sport Championship as boxers. However; those children were not necessarily drawn from schools but local clubs around schools, and that was because there had been agreement that the club system would be merged and linked to schools. While all combat sports were prohibited in theory, it was known that some  townships and some urban schools did offer karate  as a sport and DBE had never really punished the schools for that, SRSA felt that prohibitive policy had to be reviewed.

SRSA reiterated that BSA was a regulatory body for only professional boxing, so that SANABO, which was a Sport Federation, was supposed to deal with amateur/ open boxing. Even with the two structures SRSA still felt that they only covered 80% of boxing in SA, with an unaccounted 20% outside of that catchment. That 20% would be skills development, broadcasting rights because in the final analysis the question was whether boxing as a product was saleable.

He said that indeed the country had been quite slow regarding open boxing, which was SANABO’s responsibility, and since the “boxing is back” campaign of 2015 by BSA tournaments indeed were more observable. However, at SRSAs recent Management Committee (MANCO) meeting, the drivers of the campaign reflected on the key weaknesses of “boxing is back”. Importantly, there had been a start and BSA was collecting more revenue from the tournaments than it had done before. SRSA had been able to fill some gaps with Supersport as well. However, the key issue of ongoing concern was the quality of the product. Amongst the ingredients to make the product better was the quality of promoters in the sport. There were individuals claiming to be promoters, and indeed they were licensees. However Mr Moemi said that possibly BSA would have to engage promoters in reviewing the entire licensing regime. That was because BSA and SRSA did not believe that the country had quality promoters. Promotions being a business, these promoters promoted boxing for money over and above loving the sport; hence the fights in the EC with the promoters' associations. There was a real need to relook at how the product was packaged because if a sponsor together with a broadcaster put their names behind an event where a boxer was knocked out in the first or third round that would not attract sponsorships going forward. Currently the situation in South Africa (SA) was one where the state was subsidising capital for tournaments and positively coercing SABC and Supersport to buy mediocre products.

Mr Moemi said that possibly SRSA would be engaged in a new argument in future, as the system agreed to at the Sports Indaba was that promoters had to bid for dates. Originally the dispute with Branco and others had always been about whether it was correct for BSA to control the broadcasting rights. There had been agreement between the two broadcasters and SRSA that they would designate dates for boxing events, and then inform BSA on how many dates in a year there were. For example if SABC had 30 dates in a year, the agreement was that 10% of these dates had to go to development boxing, which was SANABO and there had to be a magazine programme which would generate money for BSA through educating the public about boxing. The remaining dates would then go to tender. Once a date was attached, for example on Reconciliation Day and a broadcaster said to promoters that there was a date, promoters could bid. A good promoter could say he/she would do a reconciliation challenge where white boxers fight against black boxers and the package as whole was saleable, and that might win the date . However, the chance was strong that strong bids would be put in by the same promoters under that formula, because there were only about 5% of capable promoters with capacity in the country. Therein lay the secondary unhappiness amongst promoters, and it was already simmering according to Mr Moemi. In order to safeguard the smaller promoters SRSA had opted for the tenders to be limited to the regions it was going to with BSA. Essentially then, if the boxing was to be taken to Limpopo, only promoters registered with BSA and who were in good standing, and whose primary business address was in Limpopo, were entitled to bid. In that process a new issue emerged. The EC promoters were bemoaning that strategy saying that they had the highest concentration of boxers in their provinces, and therefore they could not be given the same share of dates  - despite the fact that this had been the resolution of the Indaba which they had attended. If their arguments were followed, then there would not be any boxing development in the Northern Cape (NC) as there was less interest in the sport there when compared to the EC. SRSA was committed to ensuring that boxing was not limited to the EC and Gauteng, though it had not been easy.

Mr Moemi said that the interaction he had facilitated with BSA and SANABO had been to force BSA, with its reservations, to not be spectators in the new amateurs boxing league, because BSA had to be already looking into the promotion aspects of taking promising youngsters from that league for incubation by BSA. Additionally SRSA and BSA had to look at protecting the interests of SA in terms of regulations for boxing; promoters were only after money whereas SRSA had a responsibility to develop boxers who could compete at the Olympics. One challenge for SA was that its athletes turned professional at a young age whereas a country like Russia went with athletes that had gone to three Olympic cycles. It certainly would be constitutionally tested, as the regulations could say unless a boxer was 24 and that he/she had fought a certain number of amateur fights and was designated, and had gone to at least two Olympic Games, then that boxer would not be allowed to become professional. 

The amateur boxing league would start in 2016, probably in July, with unknown boxers  and that was important as they would initiate the feeder pipeline.

The Chairperson appreciated the update on the issue of the parallel promoters’ structures in the EC. The Committee had engaged with these promoters and they had never told the Committee that SRSA and BSA were intervening. She urged that SRSA should always inform the Committee when it was intervening in sports related disputes in all the provinces.

Mr Moteka said that his question was not related to “boxing is back” tournaments but about boxing in schools and community clubs taking place. Therefore SANABO had to come before the Committee as it was a critical organisation in the developmental and amateur boxing spheres.

Mr Malatsi asked what some of the internal deficiencies at BSA were  with regard to the packaging of a saleable product for broadcasters and sponsors, because it was a two way relationship where that failure of promoters to package a series of bouts was concerned, or where even the boxers themselves had questionable abilities. BSA had the capacity to be more stringent in the issuing of licenses in relation to the quality of the product so as to maximize on those products. Unless the products were made more attractive the current struggle would continue. Difficult decisions had to be taken when rebuilding a brand to produce a more attractive offer. He asked what were some of the weaknesses in the system that allowed for the offering to be mediocre, and what interventions there were to address them? BSA had the power, by virtue of issuing of licences, to attach conditions that would strengthen the attractiveness of that product. Mr Malatsi felt that there was no need for leniency when packaging an attractive offering because that ran the risk of affecting the quality of the offering.

Ms Manana said that SRSA and BSA simply had to convene a session with boxers and promoters to get a sense of why there was mediocrity in boxing. She agreed that promoters were simply in it to make money.

The Chairperson said that the Committee had asked the quarrelling associations in the EC where the boxers were, if the promoters were fighting so passionately about legitimacy. She was wondering what sport and recreation legislation was saying about the plight of boxers and boxing. There had to be a way of better regulating how promoters treated boxers. Many of these athletes died as paupers.

Ms Ravele said that BSA agreed with Mr Malatsi’s sentiments but the entity was planning to have a session with SRSA and the SABC where BSA wanted to review “boxing is back”, in order to identify weaknesses, including those enumerated by Mr Moemi. From that engagement, BSA was planning to then have a session with promoters when BSA would present the standard of bids it would expect going forward. Those were the type of interventions being planned to better the sport offering.

Mr Moemi said that deficiencies at BSA that had to be addressed included regulatory capacity. This was currently being undertaken by BSA ,with only the two remaining vacancies for Director: Operations and the CEO positions respectively.

The Chairperson said she would want to return to the policy decision by DBE to prohibit combat sports at schools even at a later stage, as every time SRSA seemed to be making progress DBE seemed to be stalling that work.

South African Institute for Drug-Free Sport (SAIDS) 2013-18 Strategic and Annual Performance Plan briefing
Mr Graham Abrahams, Board director, SAIDS, apologised for the absence of the Chairperson of the Board of SAIDS.

Mr Khalid Galant, Chief Executive Officer, SAIDS, said that the entity had received a 10% increase on its 2016 funding from SRSA as part of the four Estimates of National Expenditure (ENE) budget cycle.

He outlined the factors influencing the drawing up of the Annual Performance Plan (APP). An agency such as SAIDS had to be nimble and agile in adjusting its SP and APP to some of the influences affecting sport. SAIDS had to manage the various risks that the institute faced. One was the effect of the #feesmustfall# campaign. There had been a temporary self-imposed closure of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accredited Laboratory at the University of the Free State (UFS), and that would continue for six months from the 1 April 2016 in an attempt to address upgrades and capacity issues. That matter had a knock-on financial effect as SAIDS currently had to send its samples to another accredited laboratory .the closest and cheapest alternative was in Doha, Qatar. The sending of the samples for the six months  would have no effect on SAIDS’ testing plan in the country, and testing would continue, although it would obviously affect its APP and how its performance would be measured.

He said that over the years the NLC grants had been supporting SAIDS anti-doping education programme, which allowed the institute to be able to measure its strengths and weaknesses within that programme. Amongst the weaknesses was the language offerings of the education programme and SAIDS would be looking into increasing the number of languages in which the programme would be offered. 

Key performance areas were outlined as follows:
Doping control and drug testing
Mr Onke Ngwane, Financial Manager, SAIDS, said that the SAIDS' key performance areas had not changed though the targets within them had changed. He then enumerated them (see attached presentation for all details).

Finance
Mr Ngwane said that SAIDS had brought in an individual who had experience in Supply chain management (SCM), procurement and audit so as to ensure compliance with NT guidelines and the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) in addressing the irregular expenditure which had been a recurring phenomenon in the institute’s audit report by the Auditor-General South Africa (AGSA). Part of that systemic change was for the procurement process to go through two levels of authority. The Head of the department procuring would have to sign off on the procurement, and next would be the Financial Manager's signature for procurement to proceed. Without both signatures the CEO could not sign off on the procurement.

Mr Moemi interjected that the key issue with the temporary closure of the Anti-doping Laboratory at UFS was that it was a University centre, meaning it was wholly owned by UFS. SRSA was not in favour of that model as the University and its structures had their own way of handling issues and SRSA with SAIDS had had some challenges with that system previously. If UFS was to say that because of recent severe financial constraints it was unable to recapitalise the Laboratory, could not do tests or did not have capacity, there would be a major problem. The machine to do EPO testing alone was no less than R15 million and that was not the end of the capacity challenge. SRSA found that in total it would need about R186 million to fully capacitate that laboratory. SRSA was not eager to raise that amount for that laboratory unless it would be allowed to have a stake in that laboratory, as the PFMA required that the government had to have a say how public funds were used. Consequently SRSA had initiated engagement with the laboratory and the NLC. Ideally,  SRSA wanted a semi public private partnership (PPP) where the University's council as well as the Minister would appoint the members of that board. SAIDS, SRSA and the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee  (SASCOC) would have a say, through the Minister, as to who would sit on that board. Then the NLC could start to capitalize and SRSA could also start to budget not only for SAIDS but for the capacity of the laboratory annually. That proposal had been put to UFS. SRSA was looking at a medium to long term funding plan with UFS and it had requested UFS to give it a funding plan for at least five years. UFS had given SRSA one plan for the first three years through SAIDS, but after reviewing it SRSA had issues with some of the things UFS was proposing. There were ongoing engagements around that. SRSA believed that the laboratory had made its structure very top heavy previously, without the real analysts to do the work. Since that point had been raised two years ago, the number of analysts at the laboratory had increased, though the management structure still needed close scrutiny as well. That Laboratory’s biggest - if not only - client was SAIDS and the fact that the institute had no say in how the laboratory operated was problematic.

In terms of the support that SRSA was giving SAIDS, Mr Moemi reminded the Committee that in his previous briefing he had spoken about the need to strengthen SAIDS legislation. In the second session of Parliament, the Sport and Recreation Act as well as the SAIDS Act had been put on the programme of Parliament for tabling. Although the changes to the SAIDS Act were small in number, the major issue was around the capacity and authority of SAIDS to test minors, largely school going children in rugby and other risky sporting codes. Currently the parents or the child had to opt-in, or the parent had to give specific authority for the child to be tested. The amendments would say that by virtue of a parent authorising his/her child to play sports, they were granting permission for random testing of their children.

Discussion
Ms Manana said that SAIDS was doing commendable work, as seen from the results of random tests at the Comrades Marathon. SRSA could always seek to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with DBE on the random testing of athletes at the National Schools Sports Championships (NSSC) and other tournaments, pending the tabling of the SAIDS amendments.

Mr Malatsi asked for more detail of where the anti-doping education programme had been taken, and the engagements SAIDS had had with Sports Federation, particularly the updated lists of banned substances so as to avoid similar problems as with Sharapova.

Mr Galant said the quantifiable data in terms of Mr Malatsi’s question was part of the SRSA tabling however he would respond to how SAIDS interacted with Sports Federations on lists of banned substances. In October SAIDS annually sent an updated list of banned substances to all sports federations, that was further communicated through Facebook and Twitter. The 200-plus athletes who had international ranking from SA and who represented the country in global competitions were consulted on an individual basis by SAIDS to go through the updated list of banned substances. At the conclusion of that consultation each athlete had to sign a disclosure form confirming being informed of the updated list of banned substances and certifying that they knew how to apply for a therapeutic use exemption and also knew what their responsibilities were in that regard. In an Olympic year such as 2016, SAIDS was a bit more thorough in that it would send a long and short list of substances and would have one-on-ones with athlete managers, coaches and medical personnel, so that all components of a representative SA team knew their anti-doping responsibilities and what to expect in a foreign country in terms of random testing.

SAIDS had had very progressive anti-doping educational sessions with the lower leagues of football such as the National First Division, women’s soccer and even the South African Football Association (SAFA) Second Division through a grant that SAIDS had received through the FIFA legacy fund. SAIDS had also had some successes in catching doping athletes in the new growing Extreme Fighting Championship (EFC) Mixed Martial Arts sport, where it was also having one-on-one with the promoters and fighters. It would build on that so that every new fighter coming into the sport would know their responsibilities in terms of anti-doping regulations.

SAIDS had completed the concept document requested by DBE for schools testing, though it had not sent it as SRSA had to first give its input on the document as well, so that when it went to DBE concrete intervention could be implemented.

Mr Moemi said that it would not be so easy to set the target for schools testing. Previously SAIDS set target saying it would do 3 000 tests but the new approach was around smart testing which was on a risk basis. The profile was changing throughout the year but if everyone knew what they were targeting to do and where this was going to be, it made easier  depending on fluctuations of the numbers and the intensity of what was being done at a specific time and quarter. There was an array of tools that SAIDS was using. One was the system called the Anti-Doping Administration & Management System (ADAMS). ADAMS did in-competition and out of competition random testing so that if an athlete was at home they had to log into the system to say where they were, so SAIDS could visit and take a random sample out of competition.

The Athlete Biological Passport assisted in significantly reducing and profiling the risky characters because although SA was amongst the top doping countries, its systems of anti-doping were the most effective, because most of the doping cases were reported by SAIDS.

He said that since the Mamabolo case the lessons learned had enabled SARS and SAIDS to close most of the gaps. Mr Mamabolo was not disciplined because of anything that SAIDS had done wrong. The technicality was that the chain of custody of his sample had been questioned. Therefore the Sharapova style of an athlete performing and winning, then later to be discovered to be doping , was not foreseeable because of the effectiveness of SAIDS’ systems.

Moreover one of the conditions of transfer of money to the federations was that SRSA required that they would commit to the anti-doping regime of SAIDS and that they were alerting their athletes. All the top 200 athletes in the country who would be on Operation Excellence (OPEX) were compelled to be tested.

The Chairperson commended SAIDS for its work as it had been doing anti-doping education during a kit hand-over with South African Police Service (SAPS) present recently. She had been amazed at how ordinary objects could be indicators of children beginning a drug habit in the home. She was pleading with SAIDS to visit more schools, having invited parents also to exhibit the kind of objects that children used for drugs. She also asked for a progress report on the Luvo Manyonga case.

Mr Moemi answered that for the Olympics, there were four qualification standards for athletes. SA’s qualifying standards were even more stringent. The first criterion for qualification looked at whether an athlete was internationally ranked, in the top eight/ top 12 in other sports. The second criterion was if an athlete had qualified in the sanctioned qualification tournament. The third criterion was the wild card. This would say that because a sport was not very popular in a region of the world - for example hockey in Africa where there would be a continental championship - where the winner of this championship would qualify for Olympics, though it would not be a designated championship. Lastly there was Olympic standard D, which was the international solidarity movement standard, under which the Olympic Committee, knowing that a particular country might never attend the Olympics otherwise because of its size, would invite its top seeded athlete. He said that in SA there was no snow or winter sports sector, but Mr Sive Speelman, a skier from the EC, had been invited, despite the fact that he knew that he stood no chance against European contenders, based on his times. He was invited to the Sochi 2014 Winter Games. That trip for one athlete would have cost SRSA about R22 million, as the contingent would still have included a team manager, doctor, physiotherapist, dietician and a chef, and that was simply not logical. If SA was to compare itself with countries like Jamaica and Kenya, on a rand-to-rand basis as to what they put in, SA was grossly under performing. Jamaica sent a team of 13 athletes for short track distances only, and they would return with 8 medals between them. SA, in the London 2012 Olympics, had sent a team of 263 athletes, who returned with five medals only; the country was trying to be all things to all people. Someone had to make the difficult decision of telling an athlete with no prospects that they were not going, even if qualifying by some of the outer Olympic standards. He added that Kenya also normally sent only 10 athletes but they could return with six or seven medals. SRSA had now taken the difficult decision that the third criterion/ standard C and standard D of Olympic qualification would not be enough for a place to the Rio 2016 Olympics. Banyana Banyana had qualified by standard B, which was why they were going, and the women’s hockey team was staying because it had not performed similarly, though media sensationalism was putting them on the same footing.

Department of Sport and Recreation (SRSA) Annual Performance Plan
Mr Moemi took the Committee through the SRSA APP engagement. He noted that SRSA had not received feedback from Cabinet on the revision that had been done to the Medium Term Strategic Framework (MTSF), which had been tabled in February by the Department of Arts and Culture (DAC). However, in SRSA's engagements with the Presidency and NT it had found out that the revisions were apparently agreed to.

Mr Moemi said that SRSA had done a SWOT analysis and its results were that the Concurrent functions governing three spheres of Government was a threat, in the context that almost all municipalities were not budgeting for sport programming and six of the nine provinces also were not budgeting for sport and were fully depended on the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG). SRSA was also making it illegal for federations to bid for international tournaments without Government approval. It was forcing SASCOC to have targets, and for regulatory bodies like BSA to meet specific performance targets.

He then described some of the changes to the deliverables in the 2016/17 financial year:
Active Nation-2016: Mr Moemi said that in the only new deliverable for the 2016/17 financial year was that the first batch of sports buses would be delivered with nine going to provinces and three remaining with the Department for national programming.

Winning Nation-2016 Deliverables: Mr Moemi said that the Minister had signed an agreement with the President that SRSA needed to support 40 developmental athletes with scientific support to help them move from amateur to professional.  Additional new deliverables in that programme were the: National Sports Industry Exhibition, International Sport Exchange Conference and the Sports Week which was started in the 2015/16 financial year and would be ongoing.

Sport Support-2016 Deliverables: Mr Moemi said that SRSA was at the conceptual stages of the sports ticket levy and that the Federation of the Year in 2016 was Hockey. SRSA was planning the unveiling of a hockey league from 2016, and its support to that federation would extend for three financial years until hockey was self sustaining.

Sport Infrastructure Support-2016 Deliverables: Mr Moemi said that SRSA was working around the National Sport Events and Recreation Centre (NASEREC) precinct which was what it had been declared originally. The six land parcels in that Precinct were held by the Department of Public Works (DPW) in trust on SRSA's behalf. There had been a lot of housing encroachment because previously SRSA had not stamped its authority over that precinct. There would be fights and disputes as SRSA was reclaiming NASEREC as there were plans to build smart cities and the BRICS Bank there. 

 SRSA had also engaged the Metros on the use of the Urban Settlements Development Grant (USDG),  15% of which went the same way as with the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG). SRSA had had the first Metros Sports Forum, where they were working out the modalities. The only metro which was being uncooperative was the City of Cape Town. More saddening was that even with the facilities count, the same metro had refused completely to participate in the count. Enforcement would be acrimonious as the metro would not be able to host any major sporting events without the support of National Government. Fortunately though, the WC Provincial Government had assisted by using its own people to do the facilities count and that work was completed with two days to spare before the end of the financial year.

The Greening of Open Space was currently a partnered project with the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA).

Discussion
Mr Mabika said that it was sad that there were still provinces not budgeting for sports. During oversight in Durban, the Committee had engaged sports hub facilitators whose futures were uncertain as their contracts were to be terminated and the hubs closed though they had good stories to tell. He asked Mr Moemi to clarify and elaborate on the state of the hubs. What type of buses would the SRSA roll out? Could SRSA also speak to sport focus schools as there seemed to be some schools that were still confused as to what was required of them. What was the progress in terms of the ticket levy? Why were members not being invited to the Sports Awards?

Mr D Bergman (DA) said that he had done some oversight on the Easter break on a national Sports Championship. though it was with private schools. It was commendable for a sports event to make money instead of costing money. As he had never been to the NSSC, he wished to go attend so as to see what SRSA was comparing the NSSC to. He then painted a picture of what was going on at the private schools championships. He said there was no need to carry cash as one could load money on a card which one could use on all the stalls at the event, and people who would never, over the weekend, have anything to do with sports would come together as spectators, parents and families to support the games and enjoy sports. SRSA could duplicate a similar event once or twice a year if it could generate a profit.

Mr Bergman commented on the MTSF, and said that SRSA's pillar was pride in our national teams. He thought that SRSA was trying too much because the lesson he had learnt was that a tennis or golf player would play the sport whether the racket or club were made of wood. SRSA kept on trying to change the racket and blaming the court surface and other things. He concurred with Mr Moemi that it would make sense for SRSA to choose the sphere of influence that SRSA wanted to focus on and work towards that direction. He cited the example of working on school level sports, saying that if the right input was inserted there, it would happen, by the time that process feeds into clubs and the professional league, that fair transformation would have organically occurred on merit.

In terms of SRSA's agreements with Russia and Cuba, he asked Mr Moemi to explain where the similarities in sports were between the three countries, as even in the International Relations Committee that was what was being talked about. What were the disadvantages and advantages of those agreements and what would SA be sharing with those countries?

Mr Malatsi wanted further elaboration on the background work done concerning the ticket levy and engagements, if there had been any, with federations and what had their early contributions been? He also noted a discrepancy in the calculations on the ENE under sport support between BSA and other federations.

Mr G Mmusi (ANC) said there were some apparent discrepancies in the APPs. For instance, one APP might cited a number of employees trained, then in following ones this figure would drop hugely. He wondered if there were drops in these budgets. He asked about the frequency of the Ministry meeting with SRSA's Advisory Council and what were the outcomes of such meetings? There were also programmes that had been done away with and he wanted clarity on those. He asked for the impact of the equipment roll-out within the Active Nation programme, especially regarding community club development? There had also been a reduction in the number of participants in the NSSC from 10 000 to 7 500 and he asked if the allocation for the NSSC also decreased accordingly? He asked how the sports buses were allocated. He wanted to know if SRSA had counted the non-handed over facilities which it had recently built in its facilities count?

Ms Manana said that where SRSA was experiencing non-cooperation with the facilities count, Members of the Committee had to task themselves with assisting the Department , as it was in the national interest for the facilities number to be known.

She asked whether the targets for Programme 1: Administration were suitable for that programme, its mandate and whether these targets would be achievable as the programme was about the drivers of the rest of the other programmes in the Department. How was SRSA measuring the key performance outputs of its subprogrammes, given that there were resources allocated to them?

Mr Moemi said that SRSA had brought the matter of provinces not budgeting to both Committees of Sports repeatedly, with a slight improvement, as some provinces had started to improve but the budgeting was for personnel still and not for sports programming. That was good as their issue had always been about how many more people provinces could employ. The grant only allowed 6% to be used for personnel. The six mentioned provinces still did not provide allocations for sport programming and the Provincial Treasury’s attitude was that national was providing money for sports though the MIG.

He said that the sport hubs had not been abandoned. However, SRSA had found that the model it had been using was having no impact. He had been particularly interested in the athletes that the sport hub facilitators had said they had developed. SRSA, through its review process had decided that a hub could no longer be a person, because historically the Department would buy equipment and gave it to the hub facilitator who then would keep the equipment, often at his or her home. Many of them had been found to be working elsewhere and only after 17:00 would they take the equipment out for the children. Pictures would be sent with the reports but they did not show the true situation. Given that it did not have any sustainable way of assessing effectiveness SRSA had then taken a view to say provinces had to restructure the hubs and they had to be linked to an existing sports facility. The equipment had to be either taken there, or kept there, with a weekly programme of what was to be played at what time by which clubs and which schools, and the outreach plans had to be developed by the facilitator and submitted to SRSA. In the WC that restructuring had successfully been done, though the hubs were called SHARP and Mass participation; Opportunity and access; Development and growth (MOD) Centres.  Children at least had certainty of when to go play their sports, because they would be supported at set times. That was the model SRSA wanted to replicate across all. However, many current facilitators were a mixed bag, with good and bad ones. The majority of the good ones had actually adapted and were willing to adapt to the new model, the other ones who had day jobs and who allowed children to play when they felt like it or when they were under pressure to submit a report, had no appetite for change. Those facilitators would be issued with notices of termination of contract when provincial SRSAs visited and if they were not submitting their development programmes.

Mr Moemi said that the sport buses were retrofitted Mach 1 VW Kombis,  which were not necessarily passenger vehicles as they carried sport equipment and were meant for sport outreach. The buses were modelled along the ice cream van model. When the van came into a community and the music was played children would know to run to the nearest sports field. The bus would always bring alternate sports equipment and sometimes even a sports star. The 12 buses were a start and SRSA would continuously procure more until there was sufficient coverage. The budget for that programme was currently linked to the Ministerial outreach and hopefully when eventually all provinces would actually budget for sports in future, then the programme would be given over. That budget had to enable provinces to buy equipment, subscribe to SRS's ambassador programme of the identified sports ambassadors. A province had to be able to get, for instance, Mr Lucas Radebe to go do a football coaching clinic with children in some locality and be able to remunerate him, service the vehicle and put fuel in as well.

SRSA was largely happy with sport focus schools but there certainly were challenges as the Committee would have realised during its oversight. There  were areas where a province might not have accredited a sport focus school for example, for hockey. At the NSSC if a child was identified as talented in hockey, what then could happen if there was no agreement on accreditation of a school?  To date SRSA had done interim arrangements with identified schools that were still not accredited and learners were placed in these schools. In the Postgraduate Development Programme (PDP) one of the Masters students was doing research into the sport focus schools, including the impact on the child of moving them away from home to the boarding schools. SRSA was awaiting those results and would learn as the programme was unfolding, because it believed that this model was the most effective so far in nurturing sports talent.

The main issue with accreditation was that, as the DG had said in an earlier briefing, provinces struggled to identify the schools and even more so, to get the schools governing body which by the South African Schools Act, was tasked with what sporting codes were played at a specific school, to pass a resolution agreeing that it will be a sport focus school. It was also difficult sometimes to get the schools to agree to lower the admission requirements – for instance, a learner might in terms of the rules be required to have 75% in Maths, but he had 68% and was very talented in rugby -was the school then going to shut that learner out because of not meeting the threshold?  Those resolutions were important in accrediting a sport focus school. Previously the main frustration was that it had taken some schools two years to get the matter on the agenda of their governing bodies for approval. Because sport focus schools were former Model C and private schools, the principals and parents there often used the type of sports played as a barrier to entry, as they were aware of the Schools Act provisions. Football, for example, was the one sport in all provinces where schools would admit to being a focus school.

Mr Moemi described the progress with the ticketing levy. SRSA had written the first draft and was busy with the second draft and had packaged it similarly to the tourism levy. The Department had been discussing with NT whether a new law was required for the levy. SRSA was not in favour of that, as it would take five years or so to implement. It was in favour of regulations but NT was wary, though the Department’s preliminary consultations showed that South African Revenue Services (SARS) was not hostile to the idea. NTs view was that not only did it not want a fragmented tax system, but that all the money that it would collect as a ticket levy needed to be pulled into one big pot, where national priorities had to be determined. SRSA's counter argument was that if that was to be the case, the ticket levy would have just increased revenue for the country with sport still getting nothing.  SRSA had only tested the water in terms of preliminary discussions with federations as there had been no formal consultations yet.  SAFA, the South African Rugby Union (SARU) and Cricket South Africa (CSA) were in favour and had even agreed to work with SRSA on the mechanics of the levy. However, there were some mixed responses. SARU was saying it would not increase its tickets and would collect its 5% from its normal price and declare it and hand it over to NT, whereas SAFA had said the levy would result in an increase in ticket prices. SRSA was still to work with NT and SARS on what the best mechanics of a levy.  SRSA's wish was for the federations to declare voluntarily their income, as they were currently doing, to SARS in their returns so that when SARS was handing over the money to NT, NT would know that ticket levy money either went to SRSA or a fund for sport that would be created in a similar fashion as for the tourism levy. The levy conceptualisation still had to go through another draft. It would not be asked from the private school championships. Only designated tournaments would be levied and certainly the Premier Soccer League, Currie Cup and other sports would be gazetted as designated tournaments.

Mr Moemi said he did not know why Mr Mabika had never received an invitation to the Sports Awards as members always were invited, with the only issue being that who would be responsible for transportation, fortunately NT had recently clarified that as well. The invitations were standard practice to all events by SRSA.

Mr Moemi appreciated Mr Bergman's description of the event he had attended, and said that he had gone to an Independent Schools Association of Southern Africa (ISASA) schools league tournament hosted at Waterkloof High School, which was run more or less without Government support, similar to the championship which Mr Bergman had attended. The parents of children playing in that league could afford to pay for a schools levy, and the situation at NSSC was not comparable to either of those tournaments. That was why ISASA had agreed with SRSA that ISASA and the other private schools' league would be left uninterrupted by the state, as they were being managed well without state support. Mohlaletse Secondary School did not have a school bus like Piet Retief High School and SRSA had hired the bus. SRSA paid for everything at NSSC and comparing that tournament with that of ISASA was not workable, as that was tantamount to comparing apples with pineapples. 

Many of the schools that could afford, including some of the schools that were enrolling large numbers of black children (like Prestige College next to Hammanskraal which had about 90% black learner enrolment) would not get much support from SRSA as their parents could afford to pay, except that it was a sport focus school. This question was not about race, but about affordability. That was why Waterkloof, when eliminated from the ISASA league, would come and play at the NSSC. Because the championship calendars were aligned, the NSSC took place at the same time as the ISASA tournament, and ended up mostly having the quintile 1&2 schools.

Mr Moemi agreed that in the past, SRSA had tried to be all things to all people, but now it had begun streamlining. It was still being criticised as to why it was not continuing with programmes that had not even done well. Over the last four years SRSA had become more focused in doing fewer things extremely well.

There were still barriers to participation in sport but hockey was amongst the 16 priority codes in sport and by 2026 SRSA would have rounded off all of them. The hockey league was about professionalising the sport. At least ten provincial teams would be participating.

Mr Moemi said that he was not so sure whether Australia was better comparable over Cuba to SA because Cuba was a leader in softball which was a big sport everywhere except in SA. Cubans were ranked fourth globally, in Volleyball with the highest concentration of coaches in that sports, which SA needed. Lastly Cuba at Olympic level was amongst the highest performing countries in boxing. Russia had the best sports academies in the world and from a scientific point of view in sports; the machinery Russia had to track human movement was of key interest to SRSA. If the Russians were willing to share as they were, there was no reason for SA not to work with Russia.

He explained that the money calculation that Mr Malatsi was referring to was a highlight only of what each sector in the Sport support programme were getting but not all the figures were included. For instance, there were recreation bodies that SRSA was supporting which were not included there, including the non-core sport bodies.

Mr Moemi spoke to training of employees and said SRSA had done away with its staff education and training unit. The National Sports Plan (NSP) had declared that education and training had to be conducted by SASCOC, federations and the Culture, Arts, Tourism, Hospitality and Sport Sector Education and Training Authority (CATHSSETA). Certainly the decrease in training correlated in with a decrease in expenditure, but as the money had been moved to recreation, it was essentially recycled. The programmes SRSA was no longer doing was due to the cut in budget, where it had to let some things go.

He said that the Ministry meetings with the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Recreation (MACR) took place when necessary. The MACR produced reports to advice the Minister after investigating new recreational programmes and approaches as mandated by the Minister. On some recommendations from the reports, the Minister would direct the SRSA to plan. The Committee would have noticed that SRSA's portfolio of recreational programmes had grown as a result of that work by MACR. However, SRSA did not believe in regulating quarterly meetings of the Minister with MACR because there was no basis for such a requirement. The target of four meetings implied that the meetings must lead to something, not that they were an end in themselves.

SRSA was certainly happy that clubs were receiving equipment but the happiness was not about roll-out, which was why SRSA was running a pilot in eThekwini and Mopani district. SRSA had been concerned that since 1994 the handing out of attire had not given any returns. One of the biggest problems previously had been the quality of the equipment, because it quickly became worn out . The end result should be that clubs were actually progressing after the support they had received from SRSA, and through its review the Department had found that there was no progress.

SRSA had counted its non-handed over and completed facilities in its facilities count. The Department had also counted disused and recreational facilities as well.

The APP was drawn in such a manner that targets for subprogrammes could be followed. All the subprogrammes were given, with a narrative, including often percentages of where SRSA was looking to, to get the key performance outputs.

Mr Bergman said Mr Moemi seemed to have misunderstood what he was saying. He knew the NSSC took place annually but he was suggesting improvements to the programme, although he had pointed out that he had not in fact been at the NSSC, on the basis that it would be possible, from experiences elsewhere, to try to get businesses more involved, and if there was more enthusiasm built around the NSSC there could be the opportunity to host more than just two tournaments annually as it became profitable over time. Where a NSSC was hosted had to be strategic, such that people around the venue would come and make a day out of the event. SRSA would be creating mass participation and getting more people enthused around the sports.

Mr Malatsi wanted a progress report on engagements between SRSA and its sister Departments around alcohol advertising as source revenue for sport. He was aware that the Department of Health (DoH) had very strong views around that.

Mr Moteka said that when Mr Moemi made an example of Mohlaletse he had affected him greatly because the sport focus schools in Limpopo were Gadabi Primary school, where the poorest of the poor were attending, then Jane Furse Comprehensive School and St. Mark's Comprehensive College, and it was not fair to compare them with Malekutu Senior Secondary. The sport focus schools programme was supporting more of the well resourced schools over the under-resourced ones. He agreed that it was impossible to make comparisons, and if transformation was to occur, the State had to be biased towards the currently disadvantaged schools.

Mr Ntshayisa asked whether the MOD and SHARP centres were located in the townships and farms.

Mr Moemi replied that the last review of MOD centers in 2013 was centred on the Cape Uni-Metro and the Overberg region. There were mixed results in Overberg but from a sport programming and alignment with the NSP perspective, those were in place. SRSA had never really evaluated the rural and farming areas of the WC to see how effective sports hubs were but from a representative sample of where the evaluation had been done, including Khayelitsha, Langa and other townships in the Cape Metro, the MOD centres were functioning. There would be a need for in-depth study because in other provinces where SRSA had checked efficacy of sport hubs, it had found them to be virtually non-existent in rural areas and largely in townships. That was why SRSA had decided to link the hubs to a facility instead of a person.

Speaking to the proposed ban on alcohol advertising, Mr Moemi said that SRSA's interactions with DoH, Cabinet and the Inter-ministerial Committee were still stagnant because the Department had indicated that it would not support a Bill that would not address the issue of imposing a levy to protect the interests of sport and recreation, arts and culture. The current deadlock was the NT was the only department that could put a levy in that Bill, and it would have to champion the Bill as a Money Bill, but was not keen to do that. Alcohol was a social issue, but in solving that problem it would be creating another. The DoH and Department of Social Development (DSD) were quite frustrated as they had thought they would be done with the Bill by 2016. SRSA was also still waiting for a full report of the regulatory assessment that the two Departments had done, as they had earlier given SRSA a report without recommendations. SRSA had learned since that even the independent regulatory assessor had advised the two Departments that a total ban on alcohol advertising would not only affect sports but would also destroy industries.

The Liquor Act had already been amended to say that adverts could not be played on television before 20:00, and the Department of Trade and Industry was still engaging industry even on that. The indication was that if the total ban went ahead,  sponsorships would be stopped.

The DG said that the Committee understood the issues around the MIG and though it was against the R300 million ringfenced, it was a great start for SRSA. NT had already given SRSA the initial R6 million towards employment of people and the adverts for the positions would be advertised the following week. SRSA would circulate the list of programmes across all the provinces that the R300 million would be dedicated to. As a start three municipalities per province on average would be supported for the 30 facilities as a pilot together with a gazetted framework on the MIG. To date SRSA was working with the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA) on the review of the programmes and their registration. On 1 June 2016 SRSA would be ready to roll-out the projects.

He said that there were still some side issues. In the grant framework that had been gazetted, it had been said that municipalities had to set aside 33% of the MIGs P-component for sports facilities. SRSA was arguing that that was not fair as one of the areas in the P-component was cemeteries. Mr Moemi felt that comparing the establishment of a stadium to establishing a cemetery was not right as the cost difference was just too large. Therefore the money could not be simply be dived by three, so sports had to get more - and the minimum that SRSA was arguing for was 40% as a beginning in the 2016/17 financial year.

Mr Moteka said that the Committee had to appreciate that NT had given SRSA something, but that the investigation into what had been happening with MIG funding historically still had to be done and people had to be held to account.

The Chairperson thanked SRSA and concurred that the Committee would also continue lobbying NT on why it so difficult to ring fence the MIG, in line with the decision of the Appropriations Committee.

The meeting was adjourned.