Quotas stay as Mbalula seeks to push sport development

Speaking on the last day of a sport and recreation indaba, Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula has said there is a need to fast-track sport development at a basic level.

The two-day indaba in Midrand reasserted the importance of school sports, especially compulsory physical education and activities in all schools across the country, Mbalula said on Tuesday.

“The issue of local, regional, provincial and national school sports competition was highly welcomed by the conference.”

Mbalula said the National Lottery Board had been instructed to set aside R200-million for the purposes of school sports in 2012.

“We want all federations to start as of today by providing the ministry and the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee [Sascoc] a detailed development plan of how talent will be identified and nurtured.”

The Sascoc and the sports and recreation department were expected to develop a clear monitoring and evaluation mechanism that would hold all federations accountable.

He invited federations to inform the ministry about the number of players that would be included in the codes as from March next year to March 2020 on an incremental basis.

“We will therefore, through the monitoring and evaluation frameworks, review yearly or bi-annually progress made in this regard.”

Mbalula added the quota system would continue through the direct selection of black players into national codes using the adopted scorecard contained in the transformation charter.

He explained that the indaba agreed that quotas would remain in place for now but in the long term hoped that sports men and women would be chosen on merit.

The indaba also resolved that federations should be aligned according to provinces instead of historical demarcations.

“Our resolve is to lay into the history the apartheid spatial planning and outdated demarcations that were based on the Group Areas Act, Bantu Administration Act and Amenities Act which sort to rob our people of their right to quality basic service.”—Sapa