Hon Chairperson of the sitting, hon Minister Fikile Mbalula, hon Deputy Minister Gert Oosthuizen, our chairperson in the committee and committee members, the director-general, Mr Alec Moemi, members of sporting bodies, ladies and gentlemen, I am privileged to address this august House on the occasion of the Budget Vote No 20 debate on Sport and Recreation South Africa and its entities.
I want to start by echoing the sentiments of my colleagues on the inadequacy of the department's budget to support the National Sport and Recreation Plan, and that should be our context of understanding the challenges faced by the Minister.
The second point that I wanted to emphasise concerns our role as a committee in considering legislation referred to us as well as exercising our oversight role over the department and its entities. In taking cognisance of the fact that our work is guided by the Constitution of the country as well as the broad mandates of our respective parties, we must nonetheless remain objective in our deliberations.
The third point that we, as a committee, have realised is that of the dependencies that the department is experiencing in terms of provinces on the one hand and, in particular, with the Department of Basic Education, the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee, Sascoc, and other federations, Boxing South Africa, the SA Institute for Drug-Free Sport, and the SA Local Government Association, Salga, on the other. This dependency does have a negative effect on the effectiveness of the delivery of the department.
We think that while the committee would somehow interact with all the key stakeholders in trying to understand challenges, we also believe there is a need need for new legislation, particularly around ensuring that the Minister has the capacity to intervene in relation to some of the federations. [Applause.] We cannot just put in money and not have the capacity to do something in terms of ensuring that we hold federations to account.
With regard to the Budget Vote before us, we are generally happy with the broad strategic objectives of the department and its programmes. We therefore support the budget as the ruling party.
The truth is that the department and its partners had to deal with decades of anomaly regarding the provision of resources and access to advantaged areas and disadvantaged areas, which was reinforced by apartheid spatial planning, and rural areas were the worst affected.
The ANC-led government across the three spheres has generally done very well in reversing discrimination with regard to the provision of recreation facilities, resources and access. Nobody can dispute that this is a good story, one for the past 20 years.
Recreation has been largely neglected. There is a need to focus on recreation that does not require facilities, eg walking, recreational cycling and other programmes, including indigenous games. We must envy the municipalities like Johannesburg and Tshwane that have built outdoor gyms for their communities and hope that other municipalities will follow suit.
In keeping with the department's vision of an active nation, I consider it significant that Sport and Recreation South Africa has begun to address the need for a strategy on recreation in South Africa. In this regard, the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Recreation has carried out some good work in consulting the relevant stakeholders of this sector and will soon present a report and recommendations to the Minister. We hope that the Minister will share with us on that particular score because it is a new area that we need to begin to deal with quite seriously.
It is also important that I deal with some of the issues that have been raised by our colleagues in the committee. Generally, we think that colleagues have made useful suggestions, that we believe should be further interrogated in the committee. My take is that this should be the approach we take in terms of interrogating issues in the committee.
In relation to understanding staff shortages, it was explained to us, and we are generally satisfied with this, that they had to ensure that some streamlining of the department took place, therefore the withholding of money was necessary to force action relating to noncompliance.
Concerning funding for awards, we are of the view that we need to incentivise sportspeople. We cannot have some people being incentivised while sportspeople are not incentivised.
One more issue is that, as the DA, one cannot ask questions and then formulate a policy on the basis of the answers that one gets from the department. We need to have a policy that is separate from the asking of questions. [Applause.] Otherwise, what is the role of the committee? I am of the view that if there is a clear-cut policy on this matter, we need to be in a position to discuss it in the committee.
With regard to the EFF, I have a similar point, because we were involved in the revolution. The ANC had to intervene through its strategy, which is underpinned by four pillars. One of those pillars was the isolation of South Africa internationally. That is why we have those people sitting there. We have a team that competes internationally. Team South Africa is not here, but is participating elsewhere, because of the ANC. Thank you very much. [Time expired.] [Applause.]