Question NW1333 to the Minister of Sport and Recreation

Reply:

(1) (a) In the current financial year the Department of Sport and Recreation SA (SRSA) will conduct a facility audit intended not only to quantify number of facilities available, their type and level of service they offer, but also to assess needs and shortfalls using various methods including municipal IDPs and the SRSA Facility Classification Framework, which provides guidelines in terms of type and category of facility, level of service it must offer and minimum distance/radius for accessibility. This, in line with the department’s annual performance plan, will ensure the prioritisation of building and maintenance of facilities in order to contribute to the objectives of National Sport and Recreation Plan and the National Development Plan.

(b) The Department has conducted and concluded a facility count and verification process in 2016. The process included count of all facilities irrespective of their ownership and this was done through our facility count project team in all nine (9) provinces in collaboration with municipalities. The national total sum of facilities as counted is 5022, and provincial breakdown is as follows:

 

PROVINCE	FACILITIES
Eastern Cape	214
Free State	259
Gauteng	989
KwaZulu-Natal	1341
Limpopo	947
Mpumalanga	791
Northern Cape	102
North West	134
Western Cape	245
NATIONAL	5022

(c) Our 2016 facility count took this matter into consideration and make a shocking revelation that of all facilities counted, irrespective of their conditions, only 20% are accessible to people with disabilities, and this is another matter that justifies a need to strengthen the role of SRSA in planning and monitoring implementation of sports and recreation infrastructure projects in order to enforce Norms and Standards, and Sports and Recreation Amendment Act both of which emphasize a need to ensure that sports facilities are user friendly to people with disability.

(2) (a) Since 2016/17 the department has been involved with identification of sports infrastructure projects in all provinces in order to guide allocation of the R300 million for MIG. The NDP dictates that all settlement in the country must have access to sport and recreation facilities, and it is in that spirit that while resources are limited and prioritisation is inevitable, allocations will be made in all provinces.

(b) Since sports infrastructure projects are implement in a context of MIG, therefore, with exception of multi-year projects, completion dates of projects will coincide with the end municipal financial year, and this effectively informs time frames.

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