OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Wednesday 10.00pm.
SPORT and Recreation Minister Steve Tshwete expressed his frustration on Wednesday at a lack of adequate investment in sport in South Africa.
Introducing debate on the National Sport and Recreation Bill, he congratulated the country’s Commonwealth Games team, as well as its management and coaches, on a performance which he described as unprecedented since the entry of the new democratic South Africa into the Commonwealth Games family.
However, the team had been at a financial disadvantage compared with their counterparts, and some of its members even had to buy their own equipment to prepare themselves.
“One hears and reads almost daily about praises sung to sport as a peerless instrument for the realisation of national unity and reconciliation. But in the absence of a reasonably fair funding dispensation, there is absolutely no way that we can sustain an international performance that can make us walk tall among the nations of the world, nor can the notion of sport as nation builder and reconciler be translated into reality,” he said.
Among other things the bill provides for the minister to determine sport and recreation policy, as well as for the training of sport and recreation leaders. It also prescribes a funding policy for the South African Sports Commission.
Various opposition MPs opposed the bill, saying it constituted government interference in sport.