Question NW1331 to the Minister of Sport and Recreation

Reply:

The impasse has been resolved. The Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF) awarded the bid to host the Commonwealth Games 2022 on 02 September 2015 at its general assembly in Auckland, New Zealand. At the time of awarding the bid, the finance guarantee by the South African Government was not signed, as certain conditions of the host city agreement were not favourable to South Africa and hence could not be signed. This further meant that the outstanding issues raised by the evaluation commission after their visit in April/May 2015 could not be attended to as it was dependent on the negotiations with the Commonwealth Games Federation around matters contained in the financial guarantee and the host city agreement.

Further to the negotiations, South Africa provided a response to the issues by 30 November 2016. The Commonwealth Games Federation completed its detailed review of the final information submitted by South Africa on 30 November 2016 to determine whether the requisite conditions precedent set by South Africa would be acceptable to the Commonwealth Games Federation. The latter however felt that this did not meet with their methodology of games delivery and considered South Africa's position as a departure from the conditions they had set in the proposed Host City Agreement. The Evaluation Commission of the Commonwealth Games Federation did not accept South Africa's conditions, budget proposals and delivery methodology. It was therefore resolved that the Commonwealth Games Federation should withdraw the rights awarded to Durban to host the 2022 edition of the games.

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