Address by the minster of sport and recreation south africa on the occasion of the south african rugby union annual general meeting: 1st april 2011, cape town

ADDRESS BY THE MINSTER OF SPORT AND RECREATION SOUTH AFRICA ON THE OCCASION OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN RUGBY UNION ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING: 1^st APRIL 2011, CAPE TOWN.

 

The Deputy Minister of Sport and Recreation South Africa, Mr Gert Oosthuizen

 

The President of the South African Rugby Union, Mr Oregan Hoskins

 

The South African Rugby Union Leadership

 

The Chief Executive Officer of the South African Rugby Union Mr Jourie Roux

 

Ladies and Gentleman of the Media

 

Thank you for inviting us to this August Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the South African Rugby Union. When the SA Rugby President and Vice-President visited our offices last year in December and extended a cordial invitation to us to attend and address this AGM. We thought that SA Rugby have decided to pull one big April ‘fool joke’ on us! These were early days to us in sport and recreation and we were acutely aware that anything was possible from the veteran rugby leaders to reduce the new and recently appointed Minister into an object of ridicule!  So we did not just come here to address you but to find out whether the President and the Vice-President were not ‘fooling’ us when they said there is an important AGM taking place here on this special day to all of us. What makes this day extra-ordinarily special is the fact that you chose to invite us to present our inaugural address to this crucial AGM on my birthday!

 

We in the Ministry of Sport and Recreation South Africa are delighted to inform delegates that the leadership and management of South African Rugby Union were the first federation to reach out and initiate interactions with our Ministry even before we could settle in our new role. This proactive move was yesterday and is today most  welcome as our open frank and candid engagements have led to the generation of new and progressive initiatives that will in the fullness of time address the challenges we collectively need to confront until we realise our goal of increased access, massification of all codes, equitable distribution of resources and facilities.

 

Mr President and Vice President last year you invited us join you and the Team in London and watch the game between the South African National Rugby Team/ Amabhokobhoko. Your invitation came just after the Team had surprisingly lost to Scotland and the prophets of doom were calling for the coach’s head and unashamedly assigning the squad coached by Mr Peter de Villiers, the first black coach in the history SARU, to the dustbin of history. We will remember that the Springboks won against Ireland, Wales and lost against Scotland and were to face the English Rugby National Team. We received the invitation to attend the game in London accepted as no one would dare miss a game in which the two time World Champions were playing. We were cognizant of the magnitude of the game when these two great and warring sides locked horns. In deed as history books would have it, the Springboks did not disappoint. They staged one of their best performances, crushed and vanquished the English Rugby Team in front of a full capacity stadium dominated by English fans! We celebrated in our typical and vibrant South African style much to the dismay of the English Rugby Union President!

 

We thank you Mr President and your colleagues for the invitation and your hospitality during our most exciting and exhilarating visit to the Boks Camp and the Captain’s Training Session. We still have vivid and fond memories of the emotions, tenor and mood in the run up to the big game. These were beginnings of strong bonds formed under trying circumstances but able to withstand any force on earth. As we stand here today some of the Springbok players are now my friends, we speak the same language, we listen to the same or similar music, we are of the same generation, and we have the same passion and love for our sport and motherland. Lastly   and most importantly we share a common destine! 

 

As mentioned during our address in England, that we want our Department to convene a Workshop or a User Group Meeting in which the leadership, management, players and administrators of the Mighty Springboks will share your recipe for success and best practices or acceptable international standards together with your counterparts from other federations. The road that the Springboks have traversed to success is laden with an assortment of important lessons to be taken up by other federations to be refined and implemented for success. To this end we challenge you to come forward to support this initiative which we believe can only go one way and that is to put all federation on a growth and development path underpinned by excellence, quality, commitment and the burning desire to always come first and not second because we are a country of winners and we are a winning nation united in our diversity.

 

As delegates to the AGM, as South Africans we believe you understand the primacy and potency of sport and recreation. We are also cognizant of the fact that there is no homogeneous or monolithic vantage point in unpacking our current state of rugby in schools, community clubs, regional, provincial and national spheres. We believe this is our strength not a weakness as we must allow many ideas to blossom like many flowers, but always mindful of the fact that in  the end that the progressive, the new and the innovative must win at the end of the day and be hegemonic. The old and retrogressive must remain in the past! South Africa needs a shared value system and common perspective on all the challenges that are laid bare in front of all us. Only the Unity of purpose will see us through all these challenges. By the same token there can be no denying of the challenges we inherited and that continue to be an albatross around our necks and our Achilles heels. These manifest themselves:

        In the lack of access for the vast majority of the people to quality and world class sport and recreation facilities, on the one hand. Increased opportunities for affluent communities and societies to quality and world class facilities, on the other.  

        In race, gender and class based inequalities so pervasive in the South African society and in our federations by extension. So resistant, tough and unyielding as the crocodile skin. Compounded by a yearning gap and divide between urban and rural communities.

        In the absence or poor talent development instruments for young people and inability of the sport and recreation fraternity to develop and design a life-long sports plan for South Africa from cradle to grave.

        In the infighting and internal wrangling for positions and business opportunities for family, friends or allies.

We mentioned just a few of the challenges that beset our society and trust that you will find space and time during your deliberations to reflect on these issues

We believe you have it within yourselves in body, mind and spirit the philosophy of our national hero and international icon Nelson Mandela when he said “Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite the people in a way that little else does. Sport can awaken hope where there was previously only despair.” Nelson Rholihlahla  Mandela

 

We need to provide hope too many young and old South Africans and rekindle their hope, love, passion and commitment to sport and recreation. We need solutions and we will continue to work with SARU on the projects we have identified and agreed to collaborate on. The SARU-SRSA fast-track programme directed at disadvantaged communities will go a long way in an ensuring that our nurturing development plans takes into account a number of elements such as nutrition, diet, gymnasium, discipline and so on. The SARU-SRSA Sport Science Support Programme will be one of our  flagship programmes which we will launch and drive to support the emerging and maturing rugby regions  among others; the Eastern Cape Region, the Border Region, the South West District, the Griffins in Welkom, the Falcons in Mpumalanga. We will in also add the Free State and North West to the  list as the work of reviving rugby in the regions is unfolding.  We need to revive rugby especially in areas such as the Eastern Cape which were considered as the Meccaof rugby and boxing!

 

The Ministry of Sport and Recreation South Africa is pleased with progress that has been made in the build up and preparations for the International Rugby Board 2011 World Cup Championship in New Zealand. SARU has been part of our Magnificent Fridays. In addition we are planning to host Ekhaya Village in New Zealand which will provide a home far away from home and also show case our South African cultures, traditions and symbols. Work has begun in earnest with representatives from various key government departments forming part of the Team that is co-coordinating activities of the Ekhaya Village to ensure that by the time the World Cup begins its all systems go.

 

 Sharing this occasion with you feels our hearts with joy and lifts our spirits after the melancholy that gripped our nation in the aftermaths of the National Cricket Team / our Proteas succumbed to pressure and loosing the last game against New Zealand last Saturday inBangladesh. We attended the game in Bangladesh as part of our Magnificent Friday Campaign which we launched together with all the sporting federations and other stakeholders to bolster grassroots and national support for the national Cricket Team/Proteas, the National Netball Team/ Amantombazana and the Mighty Springboks/ Amabhokobhoko. These Teams, with the exception of the Proteas, are participating in international championships in July 2011 and September 2011 respectively. We mentioned this because we believe it is important for all South Africans to realise that when President Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma gave the Proteas the final marching orders at a send off event at Mahlamabandlhovu he inspired the Proteas to go out there and enjoy a good game of cricket whenever they met their opponents. Similarly the President implored the nation to support the National Team throughout the campaign for the championships. So we went to the Championships, we did not conquer, won some games and lost some. Those of us who were in Bangladesh at the Quarter Finals were devastated and longed for an early homecoming. However in the Proteas players change room, doom and gloom loomed large. The duty of comforting a Protea Team devastated at the result far away from home and companions fell on us. Back home, addressing and re-assuring the nation that the Proteas were just unlucky on the day and one day we shall overcome, weighed heavily on us, and with time we realized we have to move on, there are many battles to be fought and won ahead of us.

 

As South Africans, as fellow country sportsmen and women, we need to give recognition and acknowledgement to the Proteas for the splendid performance the National Team displayed at the critical stages of the ICC Cricket World Cup. For they fought a good fight and on numerous occasions made us proud especially when they thrashed and defeated the Indian National Cricket Team in their own back yard. We are humbled by the understanding shown by the people of South Africa and their forgiving hearts demonstrated when they rallied at the OR Tambo International Airport to welcome the Team and the Management back home.

 

For the Leadership and Management of Cricket South Africa it is time to go back to the drawing board. Now is the time for  reflections and stock taking on what went wrong, what are the lessons to be learnt from this experience and how do we collectively chart the way forward as the nation and ensure better preparedness and readiness in our future international campaigns. This exercise can only yield the desired results only if and when it is based on a brutally frank assessment that takes into account on-and off the field conditions that may adversely affect the performance and moral of players and dampen the buoyant national mood and tenor that have carried us to bigger heights in the history of sport in South Africa. The Management of Cricket South Africa has already signaled announced that there will be such an assessment and evaluation. We have also announced that we will be meeting with the Leadership and Management of Cricket South Africa with a view to get to the nub of the issues that bedevil and denies the Proteas their long awaited crowning as the World Champions. 

 

Allow us to also take this opportunity to congratulate the National Coach of the National Football Team/Bafana Bafana for the well deserved win against Egypt. Congratulations Mr Pitso Mosimane and the boys!!!

 

Mr President and delegates to the AGM, we are overjoyed for the invaluable opportunities and real prospects unleashed by your open invitation and generosity of spirit to create platforms and bridges for exchange of ideas and constructive engagement. We welcome this opportunity as it add impetus to the Ministry of Sport and Recreation Road Map The Ministry of Sport and Recreation South Africa together with the sports federations and a plethora of significant role-players in the sector resolved at a landmark Strategic Planning Workshop held on the 11 – 12 January 2011 in Misty Hills, on the outskirts of Johannesburg, to hold a National Sport and Recreation Indaba that will be all inclusive and all encompassing. The Strategic Planning Workshop further resolved that the National Sport and Recreation Indaba should be preceded by Provincial Izindaba and predicated on the widest and broadest possible consultation, robust engagement, brutally frank exchange of ideas with the people and structures at grass-root level. It is envisaged that out of this rolling, interactive and forward looking process will emerge a people-centered, developmental and transformative discourse that will continue to evolve organically from every nook and cranny of the South Africa society, inspired by thoughts and enhanced by opinions of all sport loving people in their organized and voluntary formations, gaining it’s own momentum and culminating in a vibrant debate and solid platform for national dialogue in July  2011 in Gauteng.

 

As you proceed with your deliberations today, we would like to draw your attention to the strategic priorities of the Department of Sport and Recreation. These strategic priorities underscoring our Road Map for optimal performance and success will form the basis of our preparations to the Provincial and Local Izindaba. We invite you to join hands with us in reviving schools sport in schools located in rural areas and townships. We will be launching the school sport programme April 2011 and trust that we can count on you to make this project work. As part of the preparations to the Sport and Recreation Indaba, we are developing a perspective on transformation which will be circulated to all with a view to open the debate on transformation or lack of it sport to all South African. In our quest to strengthen the Recreation arm of our mandate, we have assigned this task to a Ministerial Committee to be appointed before the end of May 2011.  Given the collapsing or absence of facilities in rural and township communities we need to join hands between Government and the Private sector for the restoration of old buildings and building of new facilities. Mass Mobilisation is the corner stone of our works as we seek revive the Youth Camps, bring back the culture of competitions, sports awards, and introduce a culture of olympism and building a civic movement. In order for us to achieve all of the above we need to make a strong case for funding from within and outside the fiscus. We trust you will be able to deliberate further on these fundamental issues and other that you may consider pertinent for discussion.

 

Mr President and your fellow leadership, the Sport and Recreation department is currently working on the Sport and Tourism Bidding and Hosting Strategy.  This strategy will among others to assist us as the department, federations and cities to identify and prioritise the events the country has to bid for and host.  We have stated before that the 2010 Soccer World Cup, has brought many opportunities for us as a country and we have to be careful of bringing events to our shores over a cup of coffee with your fellow mates in other foreign countries, thus over-committing the country.  Currently there are more than 40 international events taking place in our country this year. 

 

Please allow us to end by inviting you to our Budget Vote Debate on the 13^th April 2011 at 10:00 in the National Assembly.

 

Thank you once more for the invitation and may you have fruitful deliberations.ange the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite the people in a way that little else does. Sport can awaken hope where there was previously only despair.”

Nelson Mandela