Hon Chairperson, you have made a ruling. The Rules say that when you make a ruling, we must accept the ruling. We don't debate a ruling of the Chair. If you are unhappy about a ruling, there are processes in terms of our Rules where we can take this up in the Rules Committee. We set aside three hours to call the executive to account and we have 20 minutes or so now on points of order.
My appeal is that we get on with holding the executive to account, so that they can answer questions. If they don't do that, then we also take umbrage with that. So, my appeal is that we proceed with the Minister answering the follow-up question.
The MINISTER OF SPORT, ARTS AND CULTURE: Chair, hon Pambo is raising an important matter. He is not the first one to raise such a matter. Others have raised the very same matter. I think that what he is raising is misdirected, because no government, no Department of Sports, Arts and Culture has any contract with anybody in the sporting arena. It is stakeholders in the sporting arena that had the contract. Our responsibility was to intervene and we intervened. We apologised to nobody about that. We will never apologise to anybody; not to you, not to anybody. We intervened. Thank you.
Question 92:
The MINISTER OF SPORT, ARTS AND CULTURE: Thank you very much Chair, Outcome 14 sets out five long-term nation-building goals for South Africa. What is key for the sports sector is the promotion of social cohesion across society through increased interaction across race, class and gender. Therefore, it is without question that the National Development Plan, NDP, and the sectoral national sports and recreation plan that are aligned to NDP recognise sport as a way to foster nation- building and social cohesion.
To give expression to the visions of these plans over the medium-term, the department intends to continue broadening the participation base in sport. The department will therefore continue to work for transformation in the sports fraternity by ensuring equitable access, development and excellence at all levels thereby improving social cohesion, nation-building and the improving the quality of life of all South Africans.
The plan reminds us that, I quote:
No country can expect to achieve and sustain success at the elite level without a strong participation base in the community, because that is the beginning for every champion.
It is therefore, not by accident that the greater part of our budget is allocated to active nation programme. This programme provides mass participation opportunities and participants from different walks of life. Being a winning nation has very favourable spin-offs for nation-building and social cohesion. Therefore, the department's daily work contributes directly
towards the achievement of this goal of social cohesion. This is because the work of the department is about bringing people from different sectors and democratic profiles together to share common spaces and experiences to ensure that physical activity and sport becomes a vehicle for social cohesion and nation- building. Thank you very much.