... remains one of our country's truly inspirational sports stories. Chad le Clos' unbelievably powerful strike to win the gold medal in the 200 m butterfly at the London Olympics was the culmination of years of hard work, complemented by quality coaching from an early age. The success of the under-19 national cricket team, who are the current world champions in their division, and the Baby Boks, who are the runners-up in their division, are evidence that some sports federations have more solid youth development programmes than others.
The common denominators of the unimaginable achievements of these athletes and teams that I have mentioned are proper development structures and exceptional individual resilience. These are rare victories in the midst of thousands of talented and aspirant sports stars throughout the country.
However, we can begin to change this by producing a generation of champions, if only our federations and sport administrators are committed to good governance in sport.
The two federations that have produced the most medal winners at the Olympics and Paralympics, these being Athletics SA and Swimming SA, have often been bedevilled by prolonged periods of internal instability. As such, the interests of swimmers and athletes were relegated to the backseat as administrators were in self-destruction mode. Our elite swimmers and athletes often grapple with the rigorous task of competing at the highest level with relatively little, if any support from their federations. It is no wonder that some of them often opt to move overseas to prepare themselves adequately to compete against their peers, who receive substantial support from their domestic federations.
Hon Minister, the truth is that in sport, what happens in the boardroom has a direct correlation with what takes place on the field of play. We have become serial underachievers in sport because our administrators are architects of what you often call mediocrity in sport. This ranges from the absence of concrete youth development programmes in some federations and poor governance models in other federations.
Many of our federations repeatedly bemoan the increased withdrawal of sponsors from sport without at least some introspection. The reality is that our administrators don't value the importance and difference that good governance plays in sport. The levels of financial mismanagement and a blatant refusal to account to sport authorities, including some federations that get funding from your department, are harming the prosperity of sport in our country. Unlike your predecessors, hon Minister, this is where you have real power to change this.
The grants that your department provides to federations - as correctly alluded to by the chairperson of the portfolio committee, totalling R97 million for the 2013-14 financial year, and which has increased to an allocation of R113 million for the current financial year - are your instruments of upholding good governance in sport. No federation, and I repeat, no federation that receives a dime of public money should continue to do so if it consistently fails to account for every single cent that it receives from your department. [Applause.]
For our part as the portfolio committee, we will assist you by regularly summoning federations to appear before the portfolio committee to account for their management of taxpayers' money. Hon Minister, we hope that you will not dither in appearing before the portfolio committee, so that we can hold these federations accountable for all the grants that you allocate to them for sports development, so as to ensure that these monies are spent on producing the next generation of talented sports stars that our country needs to compete at the highest level.
Good governance in all sports federations is a non-negotiable requirement for success in sport. In this regard, I urge the Minister to prioritise the improvement of governance in sports bodies by supporting them with the provision of training in financial management and corporate governance, using the already available expertise in the department, led by the director-general. We expect the department and the Minister to lead by example in promoting financial prudence in sport.
This brings me to the Minister's self-professed and insatiable appetite for mega-events and razzmatazz. [Laughter.] [Interjections.] Hon Minister, we appreciate the energy you have injected into this portfolio to revitalise sport in the country. We congratulate you for launching the netball and basketball premier leagues. However, we are concerned about your affinity for excessive costs to celebrate modest milestones. Surely, spending over R50 million on the annual SA Sports Awards between the 2011-12 and 2013-14 financial years is an unnecessary and extravagant transaction in the face of repeated pleas for additional funding for investment in decent sports facilities in the rural villages, where they are needed most, as the hon chairperson said. [Applause.]
Hon Minister, please don't get me wrong; we are all for celebrating the exceptional achievements of our athletes whenever they reach the pinnacle of glory in sport. What we are not in support of is a process whereby we invite global entertainment has-beens, at exorbitant cost, to come to the country in order to headline these sports awards, when we have equally talented, and in many cases, more talented local entertainers that are available at a very modest cost. [Applause.]
We are concerned about the dire state of boxing in the country. However, it was refreshing to learn that the current board of Boxing SA is dedicated to upholding good governance practices in the organisation. We commend the swift action of the current chairperson, Ntambi Ravele, to launch a preliminary investigation that resulted in the ultimate suspension of the current acting CEO for allegations of maladministration and fraud. We hope that Dr Ntambi Ravele's team will herald a new era of clean, efficient and sound management of boxing to revive the sport to its former glory days and hopefully return the sport to the public broadcaster so that it can be broadcasted for the joy of boxing fans throughout the country.
Hon Minister, it was worrying to learn during the two briefings that the department had with the portfolio committee in your absence that the department has no recourse to act against provincial governments and municipalities that receive grants to spend on sports infrastructure and activities - a point that was also mentioned by the chairperson of the portfolio committee. Central to this is the failure and the lack of a mechanism to hold accountable those provinces that are either underspending or reassigning funds for sport and recreation to other activities. We urge you to use all available co-operative governance channels, including the prospect of declaring intergovernmental disputes, to ensure that these provinces, whether they are governed by the ANC or the DA, account for these funds.
However, I have reliably been informed by my colleague in the Western Cape provincial government that since you took office the Western Cape Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport has managed to spend over 98% of the sport conditional grant that you gave them.
Hon Minister, the Mass Participation Programme, which accounts for over 55% of the total sports budget, has the potential to generate widespread participation in sport, and set us on the path of producing the next generation of sports champions that our country desperately needs.
However, its management is devoid of efficiency, resulting in missed targets and generating no real value for the money it receives. For example, firstly, less than half of the targeted 4 652 schools, sports hubs and clubs received sports equipment from the department; secondly, a further 8 648 participants, out of a target of 42 000, took part in sports promotion projects managed by the department under this programme; and thirdly, in addition to this, approximately half of the targeted 18 000 coaches, administrators and technical officials received training from the department.
These figures show that the model for mass participation used by the department simply isn't working well. There is scope for improvement if the department aligns its management of the programme with the best practices of the Western Cape provincial government's Mass participation; Opportunity and access; Development and growth, MOD, Centres Programme.
There are currently 181 MOD centres in the province, each equipped with well-trained and accredited coaches in netball, volleyball, table tennis, soccer and rugby. These centres provide the ideal space for youngsters to play under the guidance of qualified mentors and to be fed the nutritional meals that they need to develop properly as athletes.
Hon Minister, this brings me to transformation in sport. A significant part of the ongoing debate in the sport community has unfortunately been misplaced. We should be wary of reducing the debate about sport to the racial composition of senior national teams, as some have attempted to do.
Transformation should not be reduced to a numbers game. It should be about equitable access to world-class sports facilities across all codes. The best way to transform sport is to give all youngsters the option to participate in whichever code they choose, in their own communities, with access to quality facilities and proper coaching, so that they can develop to be competitive on the global scene, and so produce the bunch of winners that we all want our sports stars to be. [Applause.]
If this government is truly serious about investing in world-class facilities, it must be consistent in all spheres of government. We can't have a situation where President Jacob Zuma's Nkandla homestead has, not one, but two astroturf football pitches ... [Interjections.] ... that have ... [Interjections.] I repeat, we can't have a situation where President Jacob Zuma's Nkandla homestead has, not one, but two astroturf football pitches, that have now become grazing fodder for his cattle ... [Interjections.] ...