The Executive Mayor of Mbombela Clr Cathy Dlamini
Members of Mayoral Committees
Traditional Leaders
Leaders of Mpumalanga Sport Confederation
Leaders of Sport and Recreation Structures
Representatives of Sport and Recreation South Africa
Head of Department for Sport, Arts and Culture from
Limpopo
Sports Councils
Business Sector
Members of the Media
Ladies and Gentlemen
Programme Director, I am proud to stand before you today
here at the Mbombela Stadium and my heart is filled with
great pride that we are at this venue which hosted one
of the greatest tournaments in the world. A year ago
this venue was abuzz with activities as it hosted four
matches of the first ever FIFA World Cup on African
soil. Doomsayers said the stadium would be a white
elephant after the tournament, but to their
disappointment, that has not happened and it will never
happen because the venue has been fully utilized post
the football tournament. It has successfully hosted
football and rugby matches as well as other events and
we will continue to bring world class activities for our
people.
We are here to participate in the Mpumalanga Sport and
Recreation Indaba as Spot loving people where we are
expected to deliberate and be agents of positive changes
who will immensely contribute towards making our country
a winning nation on matters of sport. As government, we
know that alone we could not achieve the mandate of
creating sport stars in the country and it is for this
reason that we have engaged all sport stakeholders in
the province to participate in the shaping of a plan
that will enable us to move in one direction when we
address matters of sport as we need uniformity so that
we could move in the same direction and broaden the
impact of interventions that we identify to take sport
forward.
Minister Fikile Mbalula launched the National Sport and
Recreation Indaba on 5 April 2011 in a bid to make the
South African sport more inclusive and develop a
National Sport Plan for the country and ourselves as
Mpumalanga we have gathered in this fashion to
contribute to this noble plan so that our ideas and
ideals could be incorporated into the National Sport
Plan. We initiated this by going to the grass roots
level where we hosted Regional Sport Izindaba where we
solicited views from regions and this culminated into
the Provincial Indaba that we are hosting this weekend
and we shall not leave the Mbombela Stadium without
having immensely contributed to the cause that will
produce champions in the country.
We need collective action of all sport stakeholders so
that we could together produce a plan that will bind all
of us so that we can optimize the development agenda as
we all have a common interest of opening opportunities
to all in the sport sector and therefore you will agree
with me that the agenda that brings us here together is
of uttermost importance and we have ahead of us
important two days that will determine how we are going
to vigorously roll out sport in the province.
We urge all delegates into this Indaba to participate
fully and air their views as our reason for conveying
the Indaba is to listen to all of you without any
prejudice and we therefore would want to urge all of you
not to see this as just another talkshow as resolutions
emerging from our deliberations will determine what we
as a province contribute to the National Sport Plan. We
encourage vibrant and disciplined debates that will
contribute towards reaching transformation objectives
that we have set for ourselves and we need to look into
how we could benefit from the scientific approach which
is very important in modern sport as we need to be on
par with other countries that are benefitting from this
approach.
Our overall aim is to see sport people working in an
organized manner and ensuring that resources put aside
for sport development achieve this objective and owning
the sport policies in place in the country.
This year is an important year for sport in the country
as three of our teams participate in the International
Championships and so far two of them, the Spar Netball
Team and the Proteas have been eliminated in the
quarterfinals of the world championships in netball and
cricket respectively and our hopes are now with the
Springboks and we are optimistic that they will be able
to defend the Web Ellis Trophy that we won in 2007.
We need to produce players from the lower ranks so that
our professional teams could have a pool to select from
but at the present moment, we are not doing a good job
and unless we change tactics, we run the risk of failing
to even qualify for International Championships. We
therefore need in our planning to respond to these
challenges and identify practical means on how our sport
programmes could respond to the challenges alluded
above. Sport Administrators must tell us why they have
failed to produce new talent as money has been pumped
into various programmes but there is little to show for
it and we need to eliminate this unfortunate tendency
where we don’t see positive results from investments
that are put towards sport.
As government, we have agreed on a Road Map
for Optimal Performance and
Functional Excellence in sport and our key strategic
areas of focus to achieve this are:
• Transformation
• School Sport
• Recreation
• Mass Participation
• Institutional Mechanisms; and
• Funding
We want to see South Africans from all walks of life
more in particular those from disadvantaged backgrounds
having access and participating in sport and there is no
one who must be afraid of transformation as it cannot be
correct for sport to be the prerogative of a select few
and we need to together create equal opportunities for
all our people. We need to emerge from this Indaba with
resolutions on how as Mpumalanga we are going to
contribute to the Transformation Charter at the National
Indaba.
School Sport is failing to produce stars like it used to
do yesteryears and we are excited that we seem to be all
agreeing that we need to move with vigour so that the
same vibrancy that our school sport competitions were
known for could be revitalized. The establishment of
school sport leagues is welcome and we need to earnestly
make this a reality noting that school sport could be a
catalyst to produce stars that we want and we should
therefore resolve that in every school, school
activities should be of paramount importance and
therefore there shall be no school that would not have a
school sport programme and there should also be
consequences for schools that attempt to frustrate this
cause.
Our Mass Mobilization efforts are well supported in the
province as we have managed to rekindle support for
sport and the attendance of sport events at the Mbombela
Stadium bears testimony to this as we have seen on
Tuesday that the Mbombela Stadium was packed when
Amabhakabhaka showed Tottenham Hotspurs how i-diski is
played and our visitors were chasing shadows for a
better part of the game and we should be happy that we
have attracted Jomo Cosmos to our stadium and they will
play some of their bigger games in our stadium.
Our mission should be supporting teams from the province
in the National First Division which are Sivutsa Stars,
Mpumalanga Black Aces and Witbank Spurs so that one of
them qualifies for the Premier Soccer League as this
will guarantee regular action in our stadium. The crowd
did not disappoint when the Pumas played yesterday
against the Sharks and we urge all of you to help
mobilize our people to come to the stadium in large
numbers in the upcoming activities.
I want to urge all delegates to refrain from only
calling for more resources as we need to establish how
we utilized funds that were previously allocated to us
for sport development and we need a frank assessment
that would help us to make an introspection that would
establish if the funds were properly dispensed and
contributed to sport advancement.
After the introspection, we will then identify means
that will ensure that funds allocated for sport are used
for this purpose and thus contribute to the development
of sport men and women in the province. Our
municipalities have a role to play as more often
resources that must be used to improve facilities in our
areas are allocated for other causes therefore our sport
loving people must be encouraged to participate in the
formulation of IDPs so that they could arrest the
unfortunate trend where resources in municipalities that
should be used to improve facilities for sport are used
for other purposes.
I want to take this opportunity and wish all delegates
and participants to the Indaba fruitful and successful
deliberations, so that as we move to the National Sport
and Recreation Indaba, our ideas will nourish the
National Sport Plan so that we can become a winning
nation that will be the envy of the rest of the world.
I thank you.
