Sport, Arts and Culture 2022/23 Annual Report; Ad Hoc Panel

Meeting report

DSAC 2022/23 Annual Report
Dr Cynthia Khumalo, DSAC Acting Director-General, presented the annual report, and referred to programmes that had characterised the year under review. These had ranged from administration, recreation development & sport promotion, arts & culture promotion & development, and heritage promotion & preservation.

Highlights of 2022/23 were:
- It had 11% improvement in targets achieved compared to 2021/22 with 87% (40/46) achieved.
- Overall spending was R6.2 billion (98.9%) of R6.3 billion budget with R68,8 million underspending.
- 6,09% (35/574) interns had been enrolled against funded post.
- 12 Izimbizo had been held.
- 16 of 19 National Federations had submitted their data sheets, none had been assessed.
- 374 255 people had actively participated in sport and recreation promotion campaigns and events.
- 62 municipalities had been provided with technical and/or management support during construction.
- One out of three heritage legacy facilities (Dr JL Dube Amphitheatre) developed to transform the national heritage landscape.
- 312 bursaries had been awarded for the development of qualified language practitioners.
- Two Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF) initiatives financially supported in 2022/23.
- 60 advocacy platforms on social cohesion had been implemented by social cohesion advocates.
- Zero out of two monitoring reports produced and zero out of eight projects through which target groups supported. (See Presentation)

Discussion
The Chairperson congratulated the SA Rugby Team on their remarkable victory against France in the World Cup. She applauded the tenacity displayed on the field by the team. It was inspiring as it highlighted the team’s exceptional skills and the power of unity, and the values upheld in sport. She sent good wishes to the Proteas as they were to battle against Netherlands in the Cricket World Cup. She sent support to Bafana Bafana playing against Ivory Coast that evening. She noted that this meeting was a continuation of the previous week’s presentation.

Mr T Mhlongo (DA) said there was missing information as how come DSAC says six targets were not met but they had used 98% of the budget. He felt that the report was not a clear reflection of what happened in the Department. He was concerned about the transformation charter that DSAC was supposed to review but had not done. DSAC seemed to have no strategy when it came to implementing transformation in the Department. He was shocked to see that the South African Football Association (SAFA) had not met the deadline for submitting required standard procedural documents. How was it that the Department failed to do oversight work with federations such as SAFA?

What was the status and plans for the National Sports Amendment Bill, Geographical Names Bill, Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI) Masterplan, and Women in Sports Policy? The Department was not forthcoming with information on these.

Mr Mhlongo said that the Department was failing to foster social cohesion in all nine provinces and it never showed accountability but tend to divert and answer questions that had not been asked. He called the Department out for claiming to had achieve the access to facilities target as he believed this to be a lie. If they were to go to the rural areas and townships, they would not find those facilities DSAC claimed to have built.

He recalled attending the Indaba event that was supposed to address sports education in schools and the Minister of Basic Education and Deputy Minister were not present. This was disappointing as for DSAC to successfully implement its sports education goals, the Department Basic Education (DBE) needed to play its part as well.

The Chairperson insisted that DSAC note all the questions so each Committee member would feel answered and so follow-up questions would be new questions instead of repeated questions.

Mr E Mthethwa (ANC) said that everything looked good in the presentation. On the targets that had been overachieved, how was the Department able to manage that with the budget allocation? Where was the evidence that people really attended the DSAC events? What did DSAC mean by “overachievement” of targets? Was the overachievement measured based on internal assessment or the impact it had on the community? He remembered how terrible the Indigenous Games Festival was that he had attended recently and he noted the terrible Department planning.

He understood why the SA Netball team had not submitted documents on time as they had a tournament, but felt SAFA had no reason not to. What consequences was DSAC imposing on SAFA for not following procedure?

What constituted the CCI Masterplan? What tangible programmes had DSAC planned to run under the Masterplan?

How did it a target for the Mzansi Golden Economy (MGE) when DSAC would not know how many people were going to apply?

He emphasised that the creation of jobs did not equal recycling of employees. DSAC always appointed internally instead of employing new people which is job creation. He was against the employment of already-employed employees given South Africa's unemployment rate.

There is under expenditure in almost every programme. When a portfolio underspent, the funds for that portfolio would be reduced by Treasury the following year, therefore, something needed to be done to address under expenditure.

Ms R Adams (ANC) had concerns on how much was being spent on the Silapha Wellness Intervention Programme and asked that an investigation be done. She recommended that since there were funds left, the Department use that money to employ more interns.

Ms D Sibiya (ANC) wanted explanation of the costs associated with overachievement of targets. To what extent was the Department able to influence municipalities to have their sports facilities well-maintained and available even for rural communities? She noted one of the two targets in its Administration programme was unachieved and asked it to ensure that the second target was met. She applauded it for meeting all targets in Program 2.

Ms V Van Dyk (DA) asked how much money was spent on municipalities to finish the projects they had not finished in the previous years? What was the update on the school projects that were not completed and on the Sarah Baartman Centre of Remembrance? How many contractors had received money, how much and why was it taking two years to negotiate this? What were the cost implications associated with coordinating the international engagements and who benefitted from this?

She requested that DSAC provide the Committee with a list of the eight NGOs that were funded for projects and on what was the money spent. Why were bursaries for language practitioners and heritage not awarded in the Northern Cape?

She felt there was poor implementation of the Committee recommendation for DSAC to investigate irregular spending in the prior years.

She had a question for the Minister on the fan club that was reported in the media. It reported that two South Africans had been going around the world supporting the South African sports teams for 15 years. She wanted an explanation from where the budget for this was coming. If this could not be clarified today then the Minister could respond in writing, providing the breakdown of the expenditure.  

Mr B Mamabolo (ANC) asked what was happening about the National Geographic Council, and if the Department was reporting on the provincial structures as well. He suggested that the indigenous games be taken back to Limpopo as they were a success there.

The Chairperson was concerned about the underspending and asked for reasons for this. She asked that this underspending be closely monitored and managed as she felt it was leading to wasteful expenditure. She suspected poor management was the reason for the overachievements. She said that there should be ways to punish federations that had not followed procedures.

Ms V Malomane (ANC) asked why DSAC had not assessed the 16 federations that had submitted their transformation targets on time on. DSAC blamed stakeholders for the 0% achievement on the implementation of a social compact for social cohesion. Who was this third party being blamed? Were conversations currently happening with the third party?

Mr M Zondi (ANC) said that the 11% improvement in 2022/23 showed commitment and dedication and DSAC should be applauded for that. Six out 46 performance targets had not been met in 2022/2023. Were the same challenges expected in 2023/24? He reminded the Committee that the eight projects had been delayed and had only started towards the end of the financial year, so he understood that there was going to be under expenditure. He asked that the Acting DG be explicit on the challenges hindering their progress so that they could be avoided in the near future.

Mr D Joseph (DA) applauded DSAC for the 1% underspending as the Treasury underspending limit was 2%. He also complimented DSAC on the timely paid invoices. What were the reasons for project non-completion by the eight NGOs? Going forward would these NGOs be given new projects or continue with these incomplete projects into 2023/24 without funding?

What plans were put in place by DSAC to ensure national federations follow required procedure?

What was the timeframe for the completion of the Sarah Baartman Centre of Remembrance and the Robben Island project since there was new funding? It was important it for these projects to be completed, especially the Sarah Baartman Centre of Remembrance, for the country’s tourism and job creation for the communities in the Eastern Cape.

He emphasised how important it was for government vacancies to be filled even if it would take months because with so many vacant positions, it meant inadequate service delivery. What were the reasons for the R7 million under expenditure in the Office of CFO? If the Office of CFO had irregular expenditure, how can one expect the same CFO to manage a department?

DSAC response
Ms Sumayya Khan, DSAC Deputy Director General (DDG): Recreation Development and Sport Promotion, confirmed that the transformation charter reports had not been assessed. She explained that with the 19 sport codes, each federation had to score themselves twice. Firstly, on the prescribed dimensions set by DSAC. Secondly, on the barometer of targets that federations had set. DSAC would score the federations based on the barometer they set. Only 16 out of 19 federations had submitted reports. The reason the basketball and chess federations had not submitted was governance issues. SAFA had submitted its report late due to its CEO resigning, hence it was reported as ‘not submitted’ in the presentation.

Ms Khan confirmed that the National Sport and Recreation Amendment Bill had been submitted and approved by Cabinet for it to go to Parliament. The Bill had now gone to the Office of the Chief State Law Advisor who had not yet responded. The Woman In Sport policy had been put out for public comment until the end of June 2023, the next step was for DSAC to draw up a full costing and implementation plan which included road shows in the provinces. This was currently underway.

DSAC did not give money to municipalities directly but through the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), but they had ensured that there was at least one facility in every district area was allocated since the 2016/17 financial year. She noted the comments from Mr Mhlongo about the Sports In Education Indaba on school sport and the issues with DBE and promised that the matter was being addressed.

She confirmed that they did have evidence of the overachieved targets in the form of technical indicators, and it had indicated how the performance in each Key Performance Indicator (KPI) was measured. She confirmed that they had proof in the form of minutes, attendance registers, pictures, video clips etc.

On overachieved targets and the associated expenditure, especially for the number of athletes supported, there were leftover funds from other targets that enabled DSAC to allocate to other services that needed more money than the initially allocated funds. On overachievement in the number of people participating in sport and recreation events, many of these were mass participation activities that did not require a facility, invitations or qualification; therefore, there were no additional costs required there.

To answer the question on the Indigenous Games going back to Limpopo, she explained that given the budget constraints in the new financial year, DSAC would be looking at a new model of delivering new plans and depending on how that was going to go, DSAC was going to consider the other provinces. She confirmed that the first day of the Indigenous Games may have not gone well due to the strong weather conditions. However, the four days that followed had gone a lot better. On how the success of the event was measured, DSAC had a policy for the evaluation of programmes, and with the Indigenous Games they had looked at the impact, which was positive. DSAC was going to be looking at other sport codes and different communities like the Khoi-San community to include them in the next Imbizo.

Ms Khan explained that for the assessment of the federation transformation reports, 46 dimensions had to be considered. During the COVID-19 years, DSAC found that most codes could not submit for some of the 46 dimensions due to activities not happening. Post COVID-19, many codes had still not recovered in certain areas, as a result, the 50% of the charter transformation targets could not be met by most codes. On top of that, for DSAC to assess the federations, they needed all the sport codes to submit everything all at once and on time, otherwise they would not be able to do the assessment.

Mr Lebogang Mogoera, DSAC Chief Director: Infrastructure, explained that DSAC was able to secure an arrangement with CoGTA which is responsible for the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) where 5% must be spent on sport infrastructure. DSAC’s responsibility is to select the projects that would be receiving the funds, first preference being previously disadvantaged communities. He confirmed that the scale of need was huge compared to what DSAC had delivered at this point. Since 2016/2017 to the current financial year, DSAC had allocated funds to 193 out of the 205 local municipalities.

For schools, DSAC had suggested to CoGTA that MIG projects choose a school with enough space and whose location allowed access to the surrounding community and other schools to build a sport facility. This was tried with a school in the Northern Cape. However, CoGTA had shut down the suggestion and wanted to stick to the arrangement that each school have its own funds for facilities.

DSAC influence on the maintenance of sport facilities was limited. When municipalities apply for funds from DSAC, they were required to indicate how much they would be allocating to facility maintenance. DSAC would then have to trust that the municipality would stick to the agreement.

Due to the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) budget cut, the R255 million in 2021/22 allowed for funding to 29 municipalities but in 2022/23 only 27 municipalities were funded from the R252 provided.

On the Sarah Baartman Centre of Remembrance, there had been a tender briefing session following the tender advertisement by the new implementing agent, Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) [network connection lost; later in the meeting Mr Mogoera continued]. The project budget spent since inception was R379 million according to an estimate done by the former implementing agent, Department of Public Works and Infrastructure (DPWI) together with DBSA. The amount required to complete this facility was estimated at R115 million but that was subject to confirmation by the contractors. The unfortunate challenge that DBSA had was that it got a response from only two contractors, so it had decided to readvertise the tender. In terms of a roadmap, DBSA had not given the actual timeline for the project, but it had allocated five months to complete the project. This heritage legacy project was one target that DSAC had not achieved. Looking at the project budget and the extent of work that still needed to be done, the Centre was not going to be completed this year, especially with the budget cuts that had left the project with R18 million.

Mr Vusithemba Ndima, Deputy Director General: Heritage Promotion and Preservation, replied to questions on Programme 4. On the amendment to the South African Geographical Names Act of 1998, a lot of work had been done on the Amendment Bill. Legal Services was currently preparing its submission to the Minister so that the Bill could be gazetted for public comment.

Mr Ndima explained that there were three students with bursaries in 2022/23 at Sol Plaatjie University. The concern about the low number of bursaries awarded was beyond the Department’s control as the bursary had been advertised and it was up to students to apply.

Changing geographical names depended on members of communities making a submission to elect names for the Provincial Geographical Names Committee to do a screening process to recommend to the South African Geographical Names Council. In his words, the Provincial Committee was the bedrock of the geographical names initiative.

Dr Khumalo replied that the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCI) Masterplan had been approved about a year ago by Cabinet, and it had gone through an implementation process where DSAC led provincial road shows. The development of the Masterplan itself had the participation of the creative industry sector. However, after the Masterplan had been approved, DSAC felt it was important when compiling the implementation plan to do it in consultation with the provinces. Therefore, provincial roadshows were held in all nine provinces between October 2022 and February 2023.

On the MGE, the planning was being informed by budget, other than that, when DSAC advertisedfor an open call, potential applicants could see the guidelines that depicted what the budget allocation was per project. The overachievement in this indicator was due to DSAC being able to respond positively to more applications than it had projected. DSAC would fund only a portion of the project that spoke to DSAC targets, allowing them to fund more projects than the stipulated number.

On the Silapha project, DSAC had set deliverables which the service provider had to deliver, which it had fully met. In its comprehensive report, the service provider had stipulated what it was able to do in 2022/23 which was its third year of delivery. In that third year, the service provider had to fight the scourge of GBVF in an integrated manner. Three projects were identified, one of them being Silapha, but DSAC did not change the TOR (Terms of Reference) or the MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) or the SLA (Service Level Agreement) signed by the service provider. Dr Khumalo spoke about the mental and legal issues affecting artists, and how these seemed to translate to artists practising gender-based violence on their partners. Therefore the Department combined all these issues in its mission to have an integrated anti-GBVF programme. However, the way this was scored had nothing to do with whether the service provider had delivered. Her interpretation was that this programme did not respond to GBVF as stipulated in the DSAC plan.

Dr Khumalo noted that DSAC could not force students or institutions of higher learning to apply for the Department's advertised bursaries.

Ms Mandisa Tshikwatamba, DSAC Deputy Director General: Institutional Governance and Corporate Services, explained that the intention of the social cohesion target from the beginning, was to ensure activities happen across all nine provinces. However, social cohesion advocates fell off the programme over the years and the new cohort of advocates was not representative of all the provinces. The cohort was being encouraged to work with all provincial departments. DSAC was also working on a new model that would allow it to popularise the program even further, which they were hoping the private sector would be willing to jump on.

Imbizo was budgeted for but the Department tried to take a different approach in 2022/23 where they had taken advantage of other DSAC programmes to save money. An example was, if DSAC had a sport facility handover, it would “piggyback” with community engagement session. Also when DSAC hosted Imbizo, it would collaborate with provincial departments and this saved costs.

Staff recycling in the recruitment space was still a sensitive topic because it was a way to promote morale within employees and gave hope for employees to move up the ladder in their careers. It was saddening that the more internal recruitment, the fewer new employees into the organisation. This was also an area that labour organisations took seriously for how management encouraged progression of employees.

Mr Israel Mokgwamme, DSAC CFO, noted that five employees had been promoted which was one of the reasons for the under expenditure. He confirmed that indeed 2% was an acceptable under expenditure, but he agreed with the Committee that R68 million was a huge balance especially as it included compensation for employees, given the high unemployment rate. DSAC was planning on reducing this amount in the next financial year.

The R23 million irregular expenditure in the audit report was from the 2007 – 2014 period which had posed a difficulty as DSAC could not obtain information on who was responsible for it. However, in 2021/22, Treasury had revised its guidelines on dealing with irregular expenditure and DSAC was going to follow the new framework. DSAC had irregular expenditure of R451 million in 2022/23. About 50% of this amount had been investigated and dealt with. The process for dealing with the remaining R218 million was still in progress with the hope it would be done by the end of January 2024.

Ms Tshikwatamba explained that the DSAC engagement with the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) for modernised services had been delayed but engagements were in progress.

DSAC was monitoring its consequence management and was seeing progress in its implementation. She assured the Committee that DSAC was tracking the progress of the National Arts Council (NAC) and Boxing SA.

The social compact implementation plan for social cohesion was a government target; DSAC’s responsibility was coordinating with the other departments that contributed to the target (Presidency, Department of Social Development, Department of Employment and Labour, Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities). However, the main contributor prior to February 2020, were other social partners outside government, those inputs had assisted in the compact development. The compact became quiet during COVID-19, then everyone forgot about the compact document. Mid-year 2022, the Presidency had emerged with another summit (Social Sector Summit). The document from this summit had not been linked to the original document of the compact. When DSAC went to NEDLAC, NEDLAC only knew of the document from the Presidency.

DSAC had eight targeted NGOs as an attempt to be inclusive of all provinces but then decided to change the direction of the programme by excluding the youth component. This had caused delays in the advertisement for proposals. DSAC received more than 1000 proposals but then had realised it was unfair for new projects to compete with returning projects, so it had only considered the new projects. This had caused even more challenges as the new projects did not understand the system, so the process took even longer. The DDG reassured the Committee that DSAC had learnt from this and that they had completed next year’s selection and were currently doing legal vetting. Instead of eight, they had approved 10 projects since finances allowed this.

Dr Khumalo wanted to emphasise that DSAC had a comprehensive system that did not allow DSAC to credit a target that had not been achieved. What DSAC reported as achieved had gone through that process. If DSAC had 66 performance indicators but could not achieve all of them, it would concentrate on the indicators directly addressing the most important objectives. However, DSAC had an independent process through the South African Cultural Observatory (SACO) where a research agenda is drawn up each year and utilised to do the impact studies.

Dr Khumalo commented that it would be unfair for DSAC to be blamed for the bad weather conditions on the first day of Imbizo and suggested that Imbizo be mainstreamed to address nation building. DSAC tried to improve control measures before the start of each project and promised to continually work on its weaknesses as a department.

Ms Khan pointed out that they were not able to see the transformation in schools when it comes to athlete development plan and the fact that school sport was the backbone of sport development.

Follow-up questions
Mr Mhlongo felt that DDG Ndima had not answered his questions. Where was the report? Were the recommendations made clear? If so, then why were the recommendations not implemented by DSAC? When was the Committee going to get access to the report?

What role did DSAC play to ensure that national federations met their targets? Did DSAC have a policy for consequence management for federations that did not achieve targets?

He knew that sometimes duplicate names are submitted in the event registers, so they could not be trusted as evidence for attendance. How was the Committee going to trust DSAC to do diligent work to check every project?

DSAC response
Ms Khan replied that the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) Report would be made available to the Committee. The report gave recommendations to the various stakeholders. There were things that the Department had to put in place and it promised it would make sure to deliver on the recommendations and track the progress in the following years. There were penalties that DSAC agreed with SASCOC and the federations for when federations do not meet EPG targets. 1. It would not get funding until it meets the targets. 2. It would not be able to host any major events. 3. It would be deregistered as a recognised sport federation in the South Africa. It had happened before that the basketball/netball did not comply and did not receive funding and could not host any events as a result.

There are hundreds of thousands sport participants. Collecting registers as evidence led to mistakes and errors, however, DSAC was looking into moving to an electronic system and SITA was now the service provider for the IT system. DSAC was planning on finalising this electronic system by the end of this financial year, 2023/24.

Mr Mogoera explained that outside the MIG and the Urban Development Grant, there were no other funding mechanisms for school sport facilities. DSAC will be trying its luck again in with one school in the Eastern Cape to indicate that DSAC is making efforts and that CoGTA was not willing to.

Follow-up question
Mr Mhlongo asked what DSAC was doing to ensure that the number of interns in the other provinces increases to equal that of Gauteng. What was DSAC doing to ensure people with disabilities get maximum attention and what programs existed in rural areas?

Ms Tshikwatamba replied that more interns come from Gauteng because the internship stipend was not enough for interns without relatives in Gauteng to rent accommodation, eat and travel to work. DSAC tried to ensure there are also internships in provincial offices.

DSAC was looking at other means of encouraging people with disabilities to apply for opportunities.

Dr Khumalo replied that DSAC did ensure that there were Department policies that dealt with reasonable accommodation; assistive devices, sign language interpreting services and hiring automatic instead of manual vehicles where necessary. DSAC was targeting people with disabilities where employment was concerned. The DSAC Sport branch had 10 interventions to prioritise athletes with disabilities. Those included 5% of athletes supported by scientific support are persons with disabilities and 9% of the people actively participating in organised sport are persons with disabilities. The Arts and Culture branch had four different interventions for those with disabilities including libraries providing physical disability access and parking spaces. DSAC did partner with the Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities from time to time.

Ms Khan replied that the Women in Sports Policy still had to undergo various processes and its timeline was the end of 2023/24.

Chairperson’s comments
The Chairperson thanked the both the department and the Committee for the work that was being done. The Committee wished to leave a legacy behind, and she felt the transformation issue was a sore point. The next time DSAC presents to the Committee, they should have clear measures for penalties for non-complying federations and the report should be shared before end of the financial year. She was happy that this time, 100% of invoices had been paid within 30 days. She said that the Committee should never simply accept being told by the Department that facilities had been built, the Committee needed to go to the sites and see the work. She asked the Department to ensure it uses the Committee recommendations to see where it was lacking and to close those gaps. She acknowledged that DSAC struggled with consequence management, especially at provincial level and wished them the best on fixing that. She hoped that vacancies would soon be filled.

Minister’s comments
Mr Zizi Kodwa, Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture, apologised to the Committee for the connection difficulties he was experiencing throughout the meeting. He assured them that he was in the meeting and saw bits of the presentation.

The DSAC delegation was allowed to leave.

Tabling of names
The Chairperson asked Members to provide names to serve on the ad hoc committee panel.

Ms Adams proposed the following names as she believed that their coming from different federations was going to be useful as they have knowledge of serving on a federation board:
Mr Edgar Neluvhalani – Chairperson of National Heritage Council
Dr Bheki Winston Joshua Langa – Chairperson of the Freedom Park
Prof Saths Cooper – Chairperson of Robben Island
Ms Sibongile Tsoleli – Member of AfrikaanseTaalmuseum
Dr Pateka Patricia Ntshuntshe – CEO Library for the Blind (SALB)

Mr Mhlongo needed clarity as he did not know Members were supposed to bring names today.

The Chairperson explained that this was decided in the previous meeting when Mr Mhlongo was having network connection issues. The official from the Office of the Speaker had explained the process, and the expectation was that members propose five names. He told Members that they could still add names later.

Mr Mhlongo insisted that the names be accompanied by CVs as he did not know the names proposed.

Ms Malomane supported this and wanted to see the CVs as well.

Mr Mamabolo also supported the names being sent to the secretary with CVs.

The Chairperson repeated that Committee members could still send more names. There would still be a committee process for accepting or rejecting names.

The Committee Secretary confirmed that this meeting was supposed to be for the submission of names. The circulation of CVs would follow and then the nomination process would be the following week.

The Committee agreed that the deadline for name submissions would be 20 October 2023 and it would finalise nominations of the ad hoc committee on 24 October 2023.

Adoption of minutes
The meeting adopted Committee minutes of 10 and 11 October 2023. 

The meeting was adjourned.