Boxing South Africa on its 2014 Strategic Plan; Sport and Recreation SA on 1st Quarter Performance, planned legislation and progress with Appeal Board appointment process

Meeting report

Opening remarks
The Chairperson welcomed everyone and noted that amongst some Members of Parliament (MPs) in other Committees and in other quarters there was an outcry that the Committee had sent the presenters from the previous weeks briefing back to better prepare before coming to the Committee. She affirmed that the Committee would do exactly that if it felt that visitors had not come prepared to properly engage the Committee on pertinent issues.

Consideration of Minutes

The Committee then considered minutes of previous meetings.

Minutes of the Portfolio Committee on Sport and Recreation for the 9 of September 2014
Ms D Manana (ANC) noted a technical amendment that there was no designation as to who had made a statement concerning the adoption of the agenda of that day.

Mr M Filtane (UDM) asked if it were not better to deal with minutes after the presentations as the visitors possibly could find that they would have no input in that part of the session.

The Chairperson replied that the Committee had agreed to start with the minutes of previous meetings in a previous meeting that Mr Filtane had missed.

Mr P Moteka (EFF) said if he recalled well, it was Ms Manana who had made the statement she wanted to be corrected.

Ms B Abrahams (ANC) also noted another technical amendment concerning a motion by Ms Manana.

Ms Manana noted that the secretary had to designate MPs properly or the Committee separately in the minutes especially where motions were concerned.

The Chairperson reiterated that it was not the first time that the secretariat had committed that designation oversight.

Mr Teboho Thebehae, Content Advisor to the Committee said the staff had noted previously that when there were deliberations on one point it became challenging to capture the views of all members and as such, it was better to record the resolution. If the members wanted transcription of the proceedings that was a different platform all together because the secretariat only recorded resolutions, key points of proceedings, the names of the individuals who moved and adopted motions.  

The Chairperson asked if the Committee wanted to elaborate or if she had to decide on that issue concerning minutes? She noted that it was unbecoming that the Committee had to take so long considering minutes.

Mr S Ralegoma (ANC) said he had made a suggestion that when the entire Committee had had input and a consensus had been reached, it was better to record that as a Committee consensus.

Being from different parties and within those parties, minutes were sometimes used as scorecards and if some names were attached to motions and adoptions and others were not, that would always be a concern. When it mattered that a member had raised a contentious point for deliberation, there was no issue with naming that member.

Mr Moteka said everyone knew what minutes were and that everything that would be captured and reflected therein would be what had actual happened in a particular meeting and if Ms Manana had said what she said, it was not an issue.

Mr S Malatsi (DA) said possibly the issue was whether the minutes captured peoples inputs or when members moved and that as he understood it previously, minutes where capturing motions and adoptions. Unless of course something had changed this would need to be clarified for the Committee.

The Chairperson said possibly she would have to sit down with the secretariat and consult on how minutes were captured. She asked if the Committee had scheduled a date whereby the SASCOC could return to the Committee

Mr Moteka replied that indeed there had been no date set for SASCOC to return and brief the Committee.

Ms Manana moved for the adoption of the minutes.

Mr Malatsi seconded the motion.

The minutes were adopted with amendments.

The Chairperson said the Committee had asked Boxing South Africa (BSA) to come and brief the Committee on its Strategic Plan (SP), Annual Performance Plan (APP) for 2014-15, and developments in BSA. Thankfully the entity had sent the presentation the week before and the Committee had had enough time to go through the presentation and she then allowed them to present.

Boxing South Africa: Briefing on Strategic Plan, Annual Performance Plan for 2014-15, and developments in Boxing SA
Ms Mudunthambi Ravele, BSA Chairperson, took the Committee through the BSA presentation.

She said BSA had already submitted to the previous Committee the actual documents, from which the presentation was summarised from. She said boxing used to be amongst the top three sporting codes in the country and that BSA remained the leading boxing organisation in the African continent.

BSA had administrative and revenue generation challenges which was why it had asked Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA) for assistance. Specifically the Boxing Act had adverse consequences for BSAs revenue generation strategies.

Marketing, branding, Communication and events coordination was another challenge which the Act said could only be done through promoters and not by BSA directly. Moreover at that time BSA could not even employ a coordinator to deal with that department.

BSA was planning to meet with the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) to discuss indoor gyms and their maintenance as currently those facilities that were there were in bad condition. BSA in their consultations agreements with promoters and the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) had requested that whenever they were applying for fighting tournaments, one of the bouts in such tournaments had to be a women’s bout.

2014/15 Deliverables: Compliance And Enforcement
Licences training and development
BSA had partnered with the Culture Art Tourism Hospitality and Sports Sector Education and Training Authority (CATHSSETA) to train boxers and ring officials on life skills and to ensure that boxers understood the importance of attending those life skills programmes on management of their finances.

Strategic Support From SRSA
BSA as a going concern
BSA said having worked how much carrying the mandate from the Boxing Act was, it had discovered that its SRSA allocation was not even half of that amount, which was why it was always receiving disclaimer opinions from the Auditor General South Africa (AGSA).

Developments within boxing
From the previous board three members resigned and one member passed away which then hampered the adoption of the recommendations report into the misconduct of former Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mr Qithi.

Broadcasting of tournaments
BSA was currently trying to engage Supersport on broadcasting rights issues and to get SA boxing onto TV.

Board meeting with promoters
A bigger challenge for BSA was the failure by promoters to pay over the purse monies to the organisation so that it could pay boxers after bouts.

The Chairperson then gave Members a short break for refreshments.

At the resumption of proceedings the Chairperson asked what the reasons were behind the resignations of board members from the previous board. What were the reasons for the delays in the finalisation of the SA Sports Combat Bill and how could the Committee assist BSA in that regard.

Ms Manana said she noted that BSA had in its vision to be amongst the leading sports in the country, but that needed transformation especially in rural areas where women were also concerned.

She also noted a grammatical error in the presentation. How far was BSA with the rolling out of training boxing facilities as part of the schools sport programme?

Ms Abrahams asked how BSA did its marketing and why there was a challenge in filling that marketing position. Noticeably BSA deployed individuals rather than employ, why was that so? What was the difference between the two words? What were the reasons behind the Eastern Cape promoters declining to attend the Indaba?

Mr Filtane asked who was responsible for amateur boxing in the country because according to the SANABO guidelines the Committee was supposed to be receiving presentations from both entities and that he possibly would be directing the question to the wrong individuals but he was curious. Moreover he asked whether the mission statement was implying that BSA was only concerned with professional boxing only. There was very little if any reference to develop boxing in BSAs budget structure. Moreover there seemed to be no one concerned with coordinating development boxing. On things to be done, the presentation seemed to be speaking to comments on what had happened in BSA in the past and there was nothing on a programme of action (POA) carrying BSA forward.

Ms B Dlomo (ANC) said from the presentation she realised that BSA had a lot of challenges, but in marketing boxing did BSA go to rural areas?

Mr S Mmusi (ANC) asked how BSA was planning to increase its revenue. Where there timeframes attached to the improvement of boxing’ public profile by BSA? What would be a clear indication to the Committee to illustrate that BSA had started a community strategy to popularize boxing programmes in communities? In BSAs meeting with promoters, had it impressed on them that boxers dying and living as paupers could not recur again. Could BSA speak to issue of transformation?

Mr D Bergman (DA) was concerned that in the history of boxing in the country one could ask oneself what had been happening in the past ten years as far as BSA was concerned, because the country’s  boxing  was at a stage where it should have been ten years ago. The presentation talked to a sport that should have been addressing social cohesion and redress past injustices; a sport which the Committee needed to be supporting but even before it could get there the ship seemed to be sinking. He noted a lot of SRSA intervention, could BSA indicate what its relationship was with SASCOC. How would the country measure whether BSA had improved its administrative challenges? What had happened between BSA and the SABC, seeing that there had been no boxing for at least two years? Were there any other legislative amendments apart from the SA Sports Combat Bill that needed consideration possibly? What had been the outcomes of the recommendations from the AGSA report, the situational analysis and the promoters Indaba?

Mr Malatsi noted that there seemed to be an unhealthy overdependence by BSA on the SRSA

More so on administration and that apart from the grant the BSA received from SRSA

Mr Mabika said as he was listening to the BSA presentation he concluded that boxing rural development would not be moving forward anytime soon if BSA was in the position it was in. What criteria was BSA using in concluding that it was the leading federation of the sports in Africa? Did BSA have a plan of ensuring that SA world title holders could defend their titles in SA? From the media noise surrounding the organisation and taking boxing out of the doldrums, it seemed a far-away notion that those challenges could ever be resolved because there were always managerial issues. He also asked BSA to speak to its financial management status, especially with regard with the recommendations from the AGSA audit reports.

Mr Moteka noted that it would have been better if the historical narrative that BSA had given the Committee had gone five years back so that the Committee could understand better the challenges at BSA. He wanted to know how BSA was planning to generate sponsorships. Where municipalities assisting BSA as there were no local boxing clubs in rural areas, even though there was the sport Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG)? What had BSA done in trying to address the concerns of the promoters from the Eastern Cape? Moreover the issue of corruption was killing boxing, what remedies had BSA put in place to ensure that that would never occur again? The Committee had to be informed about the issues between SABC and BSA.

Mr Ralegoma concurred with the Committee that if there had been no SRSA there would have been no BSA, therefore the organisation would possibly have to focus on its administrative challenges as urgently as possible, especially regarding the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) issues. The BSA seemed to not have enough controls over its audit and financial units. The Committee needed to understand the relationship between boxing promoters and the BSA.   

The Chairperson noted the actual BSA SP and APP had been with the secretariat and that members would get a copy shortly and that probably Mr Filtane would have been answered as he had asked for that document. She also asked if BSA could speak to the alleged monopoly that certain promoters had in getting their tournaments sanctioned. What were the strategies that BSA had put in place trying to address its financial management challenges?

Ms Ravele replied that she would request BSA administration manager to respond to the questions on financial management.

Mr Masilo Maake, BSA Administration Manager, SRSA staff seconded to BSA, said as the SRSA the interventions were to capacitate BSA internal staff and to deploy some of its personnel as the systems in that organisation had been very poor. BSA was engaging with the AGSA on a continuous base and turning around BSA was not going to be easy nor would the process be short term, because of lack of systems and capacity challenges in the organisation.

The Chairperson noted that she was surprised that BSA had a lack of capacity whilst it was continuing to employ unskilled personnel. The Committee needed to follow up on the issues of compliance.

Mr Mabika said indeed it was worrying, because the Committee had been told that 60% of the allocation that BSA was getting from SRSA was going towards personnel salaries, at the expense of boxing development.

Mr Moteka said indeed the term ‘deployment’ probably had been used deliberately because those support personnel were actually there through connections rather than merit.

The Chairperson said indeed it was not a laughing matter that BSA was in such a state and the Committee was not happy at all with that report back.

Mr Malatsi suggested that the Committee should allow BSA to respond first as the proceedings seemed to becoming wayward without having allowed the organisation to reply.

Mr Bergman asked whether procedurally it was allowed that when serious matters were being discussed there were individuals in the meeting allowed to laugh.

The Chairperson noted that she had spoken to that point as she had noticed someone doing exactly that.

Ms Ravele replied that no one had been deployed at the BSA and that the organisation had done a skills audit and would be following that up.

Moreover reasons behind the resignations of board members were that some had other business interests, others had challenges with the Minister of sport.

The issue of the SA Sports Combat Bill had been discussed at the Indaba and SRSA was handling the finalisation of that process.

On issues of transformation and boxing presence in rural areas, Ms Ravele requested that that question be put to SANABO. Because SANABO subscribed to an amateur boxing international body BSA was not allowed to interfere with amateur boxing in the country as SANABO was responsible for that. The SANABO had not attended the Indaba as its International body had threatened to take away SANABOs membership seeing that the Indaba was for professional boxing. Those challenges were not unique to SA where boxing was split into two, but they were affecting the functions of BSA though. The Indaba had deliberated on how to make inroads into school sport and to bring SANABO on board. Whilst the expectation was for BSA to develop boxing, it was actually in charge of regulating professional boxing whilst SANABO regulated amateur boxing. The two bodies had to work together on strategies to develop boxing and streamlining the transition from amateur to professional boxing. It probably would assist the Committee to invite BSA together with SANABO in future, so that all its development concerns could be addressed.

Dr Peter Ngatane, BSA Board Member said in the past before BSA was established there had been the South African National Boxing Control Commission (SANBCC) which had presence in most of the nine provinces. The provincial offices generally went into the urban and rural areas and held measuring tournaments to develop boxing. With the advent of the enactment of the Boxing South Africa Act which was supposed to assist in streamlining boxing functions by separating national and provincial activities and also addressing challenges therein. The BSA did not know what happened between the SRSA and the provincial sport Members of the Executive Council (MECs) because the part that was meant to cater for provincial activities was not mandated and as a result the BSA was left with a funded national mandate without funding for the provincial mandates. The BSA therefore was established without a provincial presence to begin with, and in trying to reach out to provinces BSA tried alternative arrangements just to ensure that boxing was happening there and specifically in certain rural areas without a resourced mandate from the Act. The BSA had about R100 000 in its account when the Act was enacted without funded mandates in 2001. The unfunded mandates issue had been raised by the BSA repeatedly throughout the different administrations each time it came to Parliament but it only received attention when Minister Fikile Mbalula came in, whereupon the actually Act was reviewed along with issue of the recurring challenges at the BSA. In one of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) meetings three years ago, that Committee had instructed the AGSA and the National Treasury (NT) to look at the Act and how it was affecting BSA in terms of its resources. That had never happened, and the question that had come from Committees in the past administrations was how BSA was even functioning when looking at its allocation, the mandate and other functions it had to carry out. The only answer to that question and why BSA still existed was that members of the board and senior management were taking out from their own pockets to subsidise the functions of the organisation. Dr Ngatane then pleaded with the Committee to go and review the past reports of the BSA just to understand how that organisation had managed to stay afloat. Looking at all that the Committee had to then understand that there was no way that the BSA would ever get an unqualified report from AGSA. The BSA was a regulatory body, which meant that it could not get involved with the actual management of boxers and the professional SA boxing landscape was structured in such a way that activities of boxing were seeded by right to BSA licensees which were the promoters and whom had to organise the events. The BSA only became involved when an event was put up, to ensure that that event was compliant with the BSA Act. The current issue that BSA had was that when boxing was still under the SANBCC there were people that were sent to the SABC to work on dates for sanctioned matches so that every part of the country had bouts that could be promoted and viewers to attend and watch live.  When BSA was established promoters had already reconfigured that arrangement so that they directly dealt with the SABC without the involvement of the BSA seeing that the perception was that the BSA was only involved with administration of boxing events. Those arrangements created a situation whereby one promoter was able to get 80% of the dates from the SABC, to the exclusion of all other promoters which now had to share 20% amongst themselves. As the new board, they had tried to regain control of the date’s allocation process and that was where the BSA problems started because the promoter with all the dates took the Minister of sport, the SABC and the BSA to court over that issue. That was the bases of boxing not being broadcasted on SABC since 2010. Unfortunately professional boxing was not viable without television (TV) anywhere because with TV there were sponsorships, broadcasting rights revenue and matches. One would have champions that would be better known outside of their home country than inside because of those challenges. The biggest obstacle was the Act which stifled the functioning of BSA and the stale mate in the legal problems of SABC. Moreover the BSA had tried to meet private broadcasters like Supersport and M-net repeatedly to try and work around the broadcasting challenges. The reason boxers became champions was to defend those titles on TV, and that needed money as well, even though it also generated revenue.

The Mzonke Fana issue had been brought to Parliament and deliberated on. Unfortunately the fact that SABC was not broadcasting boxing meant that he had to defend the championship outside the country. Similar situations occurred with Mthalane and other world title holders from SA, where they had to defend titles outside the country as the country could not support them.   

The Chairperson then said she appreciated Dr Ngatane’s explanation because it was assisting the Committee better understand the current challenges that BSA was facing. It was concerning that one promoter was willing to go to court to keep monopolizing boxing.

Ms Ravele said the Eastern Cape promoters had said there was an event hosted by one promoter on the day of the Indaba and as their tradition they supported each other. Even after the BSA had asked for two representatives to the Indaba at least, those promoters refused on the same pretext but asked for a separate meeting with the BSA board. The BSA had then given the promoters a date and an hour on that date during one of its meetings, so that they could make their make representations to the board. The promoters had then responded that an hour was not enough to speak with the board but that had not been communicated in time. BSA would be meeting the promoters on the 11 of October to understand their issues.

The APP report had the POA of BSA together with timeframes of objectives.

Boxer exploitation by certain promoters was one of the major challenges BSA was facing. Moreover BSA had identified that there was a need for it to make boxers understand that they were the employers of promoters and not the other way round, because in certain instances boxers fought with BSA even though the organisation would be fighting for their interests. As recently as when BSA were fighting with promoters to handover the personal money for sanctioned fights before the actual bouts, promoters were lobbying the same boxers to fight with BSA over the fact of not sanctioning  fights before the payments. But BSA understood that most of the boxers had either been from disadvantaged backgrounds or had not gone to school to a level where they understood that they were employers which spoke to the life skills programme BSA was running with CATHSSETA. BSA would have to ensure that that programme would take boxers to a level where they understood what BSA was doing in the interests of boxers. There was also the issue of boxers borrowing money from loan sharks as their situations became dire, with the promise of payment after fights. The loan sharks would then keep all banking details of boxers so that after the fights the money would directly come to them. In avoiding that, boxers would open new accounts and by the time that BSA was made aware of such changes either money would already have been paid over into the old accounts or BSA would hesitate to pay just to ensure which account was functional. BSA was assisted by SRSA because it reported directly to the Minister and not to SASCOC because their relationship was quite tricky. One, BSA was not an association as it had been established by an Act of Parliament, whereas SASCOC membership was associations. The complexity was that BSA could not be controlled by two structures in the same country but it was an associate member of SASCOC just to ensure that it could add value to SASCOC activities and whatever other sport activities in the country.

BSA was number one in Africa and what the Committee was not aware of was the number of world title holders in SA, it was not aware of the level of officiating that SA ring officials were at, the Committee was not hearing about the assistance that BSA was giving to Namibia, Botswana and other neighbouring countries in terms of boxing regulation. In other areas BSA was quite successful despite its internal challenges because a lot of other boxing organisation became dependent on it. BSA was confident that it could be part of the global village as it had seen that it was working well with international boxing bodies.

Dr Ngatane said SA had agreements with major world boxing sanctioning bodies where there was the World Boxing Council (WBC), the World Boxing Association (WBA), the World Boxing Organisation (WBO), the International Boxing Federation (IBF), and other smaller bodies. In SA there used to be Dingaan Thobela, Sugarboy Malinga which were WBC champions. In the Eastern Cape there used to be a WBA and IBF female champion, Ms Noni Tenge.  Unfortunately she and others like her had lost their titles without defending them because of the lack of support of boxing in the country, whereas there were stipulations with those titles. One had to defend one’s title: where the Committee had asked how BSA would ensure that that was done. In any boxing championship in the world, a boxer always had the home ground advantage in terms of TV support and sponsors, but the country’s champions had to leave the country to do that. Sometimes it would become quite apparent that they lost their titles in the most unfair manner. If TV were there boxers would be able to defend and get revenue, they would not resort to loan sharks and there would sponsorships and other endorsements.

The Chairperson noted that the Committee needed to finish BSAs briefing as it was taking more time than had been allocated. She asked BSA to summarise whatever remained of their response to the Committee.

BSA would send the situational analysis report from Mr Maake and recommendations report from AGSA and the Indaba resolutions. BSA was also planning to have its turn-around strategy with the board and requested that the Committee assist the organisation with its budget allocation because in an exercise of efficiently costing the mandate of BSA; the organisation had come to a figure of around R42 million to actually run the mandate of BSA as expected. Moreover the Committee had to assist in pushing for the finalisation of the SA Sports Combat Bill.

Mr Moteka said possibly one of the main challenges hampering the work of BSA possibly would be the fact that the board was not racially transformed just as the promoter cluster was not and moreover it was also possible it could have been gender representation challenges as well.

Ms Ravele replied that challenges with promoters were not racial nor were they gender based and that where transformation was concerned; all BSA sub committees were provincially and gender demographics representative.

The Chairperson thanked BSA and told them to go back and look at their finances before appealing to the Committee for assistance in getting an increase in their allocation from the SRSA.

She then allowed SRSA to present its Quarterly Reports, planned legislation and progress with Appeal Board appointment process in terms of SASREA, Act 2 of 2010.

Sport and Recreation SA: Briefing on Quarterly Reports, planned legislation and progress with Appeal Board appointment process in terms of SASREA, Act 2 of 2010
Ms Onke Mjo, Chief Director (CF): Active Nation; SRSA apologised for the Director General (DG) noting the reasons for his absence. She then informed the Committee of her main responsibilities and that under normal circumstance the CF of Strategic Planning would have been doing the presentation.

The Chairperson accepted the apology with a caution that the Committee would have liked to have the DG at the meeting.

Ms Mjo said the performance information she was presenting was from April to the end of June 2014. She then took the Committee through the presentation.

She said Sport Focus Schools were meant to be development grounds for young talent identified through the National Schools Championships. Learners identified from the championship were to be sent to those schools.

Progress with Appeal Board appointment process in terms of SASREA, Act 2 of 2010
Ms Mjo said SRSA had called for nominations of candidates who would sit on the Appeal board in 2012 whereupon the submission to Parliament for those nominations had been handed over in 2013. Following the applications, short listing and vetting of candidates the documents had been submitted to Parliament in 2014 for the previous Committee to elect amongst those shortlisted. Unfortunately those documents had been lost at Parliament. There were of course backups which Ms Mjo had brought to the Committee and the next step following that was the Ministers submission in appointing an ad hoc appeals board whilst SRSA was restarting the original process for nominations again. There currently was no appeals board.

The Chairperson interjected that the Committee wanted to ask something of Ms Mjo.

Mr Malatsi noted that it was rather unfair for the Committee to be briefed on a document which it did not possess as Ms Mjo was reading from the only copy. That hampered the work of the Committee in that it could not engage that report at all as it had not read it.

The Chairperson concurred with Mr Malatsi as she also did not possess any of the documents Ms Mjo was referring to. She asked that the Committee allow Ms Mjo to finish her report before deciding on a way forward.

She confirmed that indeed the Committee had no possession of the documents she was referring to and that she was reading an update report on the status of the appeals board from the DG and that that copy would be handed over to the Committee.

The Chairperson allowed Ms Mjo to continue on to the last item which SRSA was supposed to update the Committee on.

Planned legislation
Ms Mjo said she believed that BSAs presentation had highlighted the issues around the SA Sports Combat Bill.

Mr Moteka noted that because of lack of documents it would not help rushing through documents when the Committee could not engage them.

Ms Manana concurred that that made working quite challenging.

Mr Malatsi said it was increasingly becoming clear that the lack of documentation was causing a hindrance in the proceedings and that there needed to be consistency in how the Committee dealt with such issues.  If documents had not been submitted on time the Committee simply could not engage such presentations.

The Chairperson noted that some of the documents that Ms Mjo was referring to had indeed been submitted to the secretariat that morning though she had not been made aware. She concurred with the Committee that verbal briefings were not allowed therein. She then suggested that the Committee would only entertain the performance information report. She asked the Committee to guide her on a way forward regarding that challenge.

Mr Moteka said the SRSA was qualifying to be chased out of the meeting by not providing documents in time and that indeed it needed to return when all relevant documentation was available.

Mr Malatsi supported the Chairperson that the Committee should entertain the performance information report.

The Chairperson the ruled that the Committee would entertain the performance information report only.

Ms Abrahams asked for the broken down record of the facilities count in provinces.

Mr Malatsi asked for more elaboration on the targets which were a struggle to meet in terms of comparison with the previous year’s quarter one. That spoke to core functions remaining even if there had been an organisational restructuring at the SRSA because the Committee needed to know what achieved targets were measured against. Moreover the DG had noted previously that SRSA had under spent on remuneration of employees because of a moratorium on filling of vacancies, but that process had been completed whereas the report was still speaking to the said moratorium and under spending. Had that moratorium preceded the report or otherwise and what effect had it had so far?

Mr Mmusi asked what it was that made it difficult for SRSA to hand over facilities to communities, as there were a number of those he was aware of.

The Chairperson asked if SRSA was aware of the challenges that Netball SA (NSA) was facing with administrative accommodation.

Mr Moteka asked the SRSA to mention some of those sport focus schools mentioned in its report and noted that SRSA seemed to focus on Gauteng and the Western Cape whenever community sport was concerned. When was SRSA going to report on that for rural areas?

Ms Mjo said the facility audit had been concluded in only three provinces and that she was requesting the Committee to allow the SRSA to only brief the Committee fully when that exercise had been completed.

The filling of vacancies advertising had been closed in March 2014 whereupon the SRSA was currently busy with interviews to fill those posts. Therefore in quarter 1 the SRSA would not have spent on those vacancies as they remained unfilled. By the third quarter there certainly would be reporting on filled vacancies.

Regarding handing over of facilities, the holdup was a diary and availability issue between the Minister, mayors and MECs. There had been four facilities that had not been handed over in quarter one. In that regard the previous day the Ministers office had sent communication to all provincial MECs to handover those facilities without the Minister. Those included facilities for sport for social change, multipurpose courts built at schools and outdoor community gyms. Handover was a process of giving a sense of ownership to communities when they were receiving those facilities.

Ms Mjo was not aware of the progress in issues surrounding NSA challenges.

She assured the Committee that those facilities were not only in Gauteng and the Western Cape but indeed there were community outdoor gyms and multipurpose courts in all provinces of SA.

Noticeable in that programme was that the SRSA budget vote and speech had coincided with the Western Cape’s implementation of that infrastructure support programme. That implementation was carrying on in other provinces as well besides the two mentioned above.

There was an acknowledgement that schools in SA were not all at the same level and neither were the playing fields. That spoke to the fact that not all the schools were talented learners schooled had the necessary support those learners needed to accelerate their talents. Sport focus schools had therefore been identified as an academy programme where talented athletes could be channelled to with the assistance of the Ministerial Sport Bursary Programme.

The Chairperson interjected at that point that even though the information Ms Mjo was giving the Committee was important, possibly it would be best to also submit written responses to some of the questions from members. Because even the question of diaries and handover processes was not satisfactory at all. The Committee needed information before hand as a policy so that it could engage reports and she was cautioning the SRSA over its oversight in that regard.

Ms Mjo said she had been responding to a question on sport focus schools but had thought it useful to contextualize what sport focus schools were. She then concurred that possibly the SRSA would have to bring the School Sport Strategy presentation to the Committee so that the whole schools sport programme could be deliberated. She then requested that whatever other question she had not responded to: she should be allowed to leave the replies at that point so that the SRSA would return to the Committee to present the School Sport Strategy.

The Chairperson replied that the Committee would allow as Ms Mjo was requesting.

Ms Mjo formally relayed her request to the Committee that the DG should come and present the School Sport Strategy. She also apologised that the SRSA was not disrespecting the Committee in not sending documentation regarding the other two agenda points in its brief and that those documents would be sent immediately after the meeting.

The Chairperson said the Management Committee (MANCO) would see if it could not fit the SRSA into its strategic planning workshop so that the appeals board and legislation issues could be presented there. The Committee accepted the SRSA apology. Diary challenges of MECs would also affect the Committee’s oversight and therefore they would not be accepted as reasons behind delays in the work of the SRSA

The Content Advisor reminded members of the South African Institute against Drug Free Sport (SAIDS) visit the following day. The support stuff had also prepared documentation to assist the Committee with brainstorming for its strategic planning workshop.

Mr Malatsi suggested that procedurally, possibly the Committee would have to think about having single presentations especially if an entity was coming for the first time before the new Committee as there were always time constraints challenges in terms of dealing with two entities.

The Chairperson noted the suggestion and that the MANCO would deal with that issue as it was occurring for the second time.

The meeting was then adjourned