Sport and Recreation Budgetary Review and Recommendations Report

Meeting report

Opening remarks
The Chairperson welcomed Committee Members and asked that they adopt the Budgetary Review and Recommendation report since it was deliberated heavily at the previous Committee meeting.

Budgetary review and Recommendation Report of the Portfolio Committee on Sports and Recreation
The Chairperson asked Members what recommendations they would like to add to the report or make changes on sections they did not agree with.

Ms D Manana (ANC) said that officials should phrase the Chairperson correctly on what she said throughout the report, in line with the rules. She did not know how best to phrase her comment, but Members understood what she meant.

The Chairperson said that the Committee’s recommendations and the practicality of the report were in the annexure of the report.

Mr D Bergman (DA) said that in the work of the Committee they emphasised the importance of transformation and that it began at school level, but in the report this was not heavily emphasised and only a small paragraph was allocated to transformation. The Committee should have a separate report solely focused on transformation so that the Sports and Recreation Committee broadens their reach to deliver transformation that is workable and sustainable even for the most rural areas, and this was not to undermine the role of the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) or the Department.

Mr S Malatsi (DA) said that the Committee should include under ‘recommendations to the report’ the issue of compliance in supply chain management for entities so that the Committee could better deal with issues of governance that often went overlooked.

The Chairperson said that there was a bullet point in the report that said SRSA forced compliance with Small, Medium, and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs).

Mr P Moteka (EFF) said there should be decisive action against officials in South African Institute for Drug-free Sports (SAIDS) that contributed to the large findings that were found in the Auditor General’s (AG) report.

Mr T Thebehae, Content Adviser, Portfolio Committee on Sports and Recreation, said the inputs and recommendations from Members would assist him in rewriting and structuring the report before it was submitted and he asked Members to put their contributions in writing.

Looking at the environment and challenges that sports in South Africa was played under, there was a need to transform sports and this was an ongoing issue.

Looking at page 34, the Committee was assessing the performance and service delivery of the Department for the entire year and what the status was in terms of performance. It was noted that there was a slow pace of transformation occurring.

Mr Thebehae said that with the recommendations on page nine, Members needed to be specific about the kind of change they wanted to see in sports.

For Boxing South Africa (BSA) there would be consequence management for officials and the same needed to apply to SAIDS.

The Chairperson said it was as if Members were seeing the report for the first time even though it had been discussed, and she did not want anyone to feel as if their inputs were not being included.

The Chairperson further said that consequence management was up to the Department for their entities and not the Portfolio Committee per se.

Ms Manana said that the report was not bad at all, just that she did not see what Committee Members were recommending being captured and worded correctly and that Mr Thebehae should rather structure the report in such a way that the Members’ recommendations were structured in the way that they had been said.

Mr Malatsi agreed with Ms Manana and said that the spirit of what Members were recommending was captured but not in the wording or proper emphasis they were said under.

Mr S Ralegoma (ANC) said that the difficulty that the Committee was tasked with as the oversight body over the Department was how their recommendations would be worded.
Federations needed to be held accountable when they were not compliant, and although this was the job of the Minister of Sports and Recreation, the Committee could put pressure on the Minister to punish federations that were not compliant.
The Committee should strive to ensure that mechanisms for holding the Department accountable were always checked. The mechanism that the Committee had not used to maximum capacity was to use their parliamentary powers since they held the executive accountable and they had control.

The Chairperson said that the Committee should have a mechanism to ensure that they were monitoring the Department and entities and that they were notifying the Committee on the problems they were having and why the EPG hd not been implemented.

The Chairperson asked Mr Thebehae if there was any way that he could include in the report the reflection of the Committee wanting to be more hands on in monitoring the Department and entities.

Mr Thebehae said that with the issue of the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG), it was not a grant that fell with the Department of sports and recreations (SRSA), it was with Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), and it was up to the Minister to engage with COGTA on the use of the grant.

Mr Thebehae said that the difficulty with wording of the report was that it needed to respect the hierarchy of intergovernmental relations and that perhaps Members should assist him with how they would like their recommendations recorded because they needed to be in line with intergovernmental act while at the same time attempting to emphasise the Committee’s need for monitoring.

Mr Moteka said the Committee worked as a unit when it came to enforcing transformation but when it came to the stage of implementing their recommendations, the Committee was divided and pushed their own agendas forward.

Mr Moteka said the wording in the report for the R300 million from MIG should rather be worded that “it would be used for schools’ infrastructure” so that when the Committee conducts their oversight they could see whether the monies were used for that purpose.

The Chairperson said that now that SAIDS had employed a person to manage the finances of the entity, if there were any issues with compliance to the Department, the Committee could hold SAIDS accountable since they had a person who was tasked with monitoring the use of finances.

Mr Malatsi he was not referring to interventions within the federations, but rather to interventions in the financial accountability of the federations (BSA and SAIDS).

The Chairperson asked if there were any Members that felt that their recommendations to the Budgetary Review and Recommendation Report was not a true reflection of their input.

Mr Thebehae said that they would include an additional point for SAIDS that read “The Minister would enforce consequence management for noncompliance of officials”.

On page nine he would include that the Minister would ensure that the sports and development programmes be broadened to rural and disadvantaged areas so that talent could be drawn from the ground up.

The Chairperson put the report forward to be adopted with the recommendations.

The report was adopted.

The Chairperson said that even though Members would not agree on all issues, they needed to accommodate each other's views so that they could deliver on sports to all communities, especially the rural and disadvantaged areas.

Committee programme
On Wednesday 23 November, the Committee would meet with SALGA, scheduled to last until 4pm but would have to finish by 3pm so they can attend the plenary shortly after.

The Committee would not be able to conduct any oversight visits during November and December.

Consideration of Committee minutes
Members had not been issued with the minutes before the meeting and the Chairperson suggested that Members read the minutes at home and adopt them at the next meeting.

Announcements
The Committee would meet with the Premier Soccer League (PSL) in December.

The meeting adjourned.