Minister of Sport and Recreation Makhenkesi Stofile has scrapped racial quotas for teams, saying they have not helped to accelerate the transformation of sports codes, which are currently not representative of the people of South Africa.
At about the same time, Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota questioned whether South Africa needs quotas to ensure that institutions of state and society become representative of the country.
Lekota believes that South Africans have to move away from viewing themselves as representatives of sections of the population. He said he found it detestable that some regarded him simply as a representative of Africans and not as an individual.
Despite the comments of these senior leaders, the African National Congress remains committed to using affirmative action and quotas to correct racial imbalances caused by apartheid.
There is no question of the ANC reviewing its support for legislation, like the Employment Equity Act, which compels corporations and the government to employ and promote previously disadvantaged people, such as women, blacks and the disabled.
As an organisation, the ANC still has a quota, which guarantees that 30% of its representatives in Parliament are women — and there are moves to increase that percentage.
Lekota and Stofile seem to be responding to situations they face in their departments.
The scrapping of sports quotas has been welcomed by the administration of sports codes and by some black players who do not want to be seen as charity cases or as a means to make up numbers.
It is a move that is also welcomed by those who resist change in sports previously dominated by whites. Some sports leaders blame the interference of politicians for their failure to perform, saying they are not allowed the freedom to pick the best team.
Other administrators, as Stofile pointed out at a parliamentary media briefing, have begun cheating. Provincial teams that did not have the requisite numbers of black players showed little interest in developing a pool of talent. Instead they concentrated on poaching senior black players from provinces, such as the Eastern and Western Cape, with a well-developed pool of black competitors in rugby and cricket. There were even instances of importing black talent from neighbouring countries, like Zimbabwe. This was done to avoid real transformation of sports codes, while superficially complying with quota requirements.
The Department of Sport and Recreation is set to ask sport federations to produce strategies for transformation — which it promised to draw up more than a decade ago.
Sports such as rugby and cricket have had developmental programmes in place for a long time, but have come under fire from various organisations for their failure to produce black players at national level. This, however, is not the case in the youth teams of both codes, where scintillating black talent has been produced in significant numbers. These teams are seen as fully representative with much of the talent from disadvantaged backgrounds selected purely on merit.
This kind of talent is still absent from the national teams, because black players aren’t being picked at provincial level. Without such experience they can never attain international competency.
The problem appears to lie with coaches and selectors, who often choose to ignore black talent.
One way of pushing these selectors is to build a performance clause into their contracts that sets targets for transformation and representivity. These would drive a transformation process, which is different — and more meaningful — than simply filling quotas. Meeting these targets should become as important as winning matches.
Veteran rugby commentator Vuyiswa Qunta believes that more people of colour should be allowed to coach the Super 12 teams.
He said that bringing Chester Williams in to coach the Cats in the middle of the season, when they were already on a slippery slope, was not sufficient.
There needs to be recognition of how crucial sport is to the goal of nation-building.
The recent unity and countrywide celebration that marked South Africa winning the right to host the Soccer World Cup in 2010 set a good example, and its message needs to be drummed into sport administrators.
Stofile has warned that a code of conduct is being drafted to tackle administrators who fail to comply with their transformation targets. They must be strictly enforced.
Another challenge lies in the townships, where many schools do not participate in promoting ”new sports”. If townships sport administrators are unwilling to start projects to develop rugby and cricket players, they cannot complain if South Africa’s teams remain lily-white.