Question NW88 to the Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture
28 February 2022 - NW88
Joseph, Mr D to ask the Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture
1. Whether all sport codes have given their cooperation to the SA Institute for Drug-Free Sport (SAIDS) whose legislative mandate it is to ensure doping control and investigations; if not, what is the position in this regard; if so, what are the relevant details; 2. with reference to education and research programmes, how has COVID-19 impacted the work of SAIDS?
Reply:
(1) The overwhelming majority of national sports federations cooperate actively with SAIDS and pro-actively engage on matters pertaining to drugs that affect their athletes. In 2018 SAIDS fined the national federation, Body-Building SA for the high number of doping positives and repeated doping offenses at their national championships over a four year period. A fine of R300 000 (three hundred thousand rand) was levied. The transgressions continued in 2019 and 2021. The fine was in line with the articles in the SA Anti-Doping Rules and the World Anti-Doping Code. The matter was escalated to SASCOC in 2019. The then acting CEO refused to act against the federation. The matter has been resent to the new president of SASCOC and the DDG of DSAC. SAIDS identified the amount owing to it by Body-Building SA in our presentation to the Portfolio Committee in 2020.
Towards the end of 2021, the SA Wrestling Federation President threatened to sue SAIDS after one of the national wrestlers was charged with an anti-doping rule violation. SA Wrestling did not follow through with their threats and the wrestler was sanctioned by SAIDS.
(2) The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown had an effect across the board on all our operations. National sports federations were very pro-active in utilising technologies such as Zoom and webinars to collaborate on learning opportunities for their athletes and coaches. All education unit exceeded their performance targets of delivering anti-doping education sessions through virtual channels to different sport audiences.
All athletes who represented South Africa at the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo went through an education webinar with our anti-doping education team, prior to leave SA.