The Democratic Alliance (DA) has called on Parliament speaker Baleka Mbete to investigate what it calls ”unacceptable conduct” on the part of sports portfolio committee chairperson Butana Komphela.
”His racist remarks have not only brought embarrassment to sports in South Africa, but they have also denigrated the integrity of Parliament,” DA sports spokesperson Donald Lee said in a statement on Monday.
The DA has written to Mbete after a South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) decision to boycott the portfolio committee on account of Komphela’s behaviour.
”Sascoc’s decision reflects on the whole the sports community’s displeasure with the racially divisive leadership of Butana Komphela.
”Since assuming the chairmanship of the committee, he has been more concerned with engaging in the character assassination of sports leaders for quotas rather than promoting the development of sports in South Africa,” Lee said.
In the light of Komphela’s ”intolerable conduct”, it is not surprising that sports federations have resolved to snub the portfolio committee.
In a media statement later on Monday, the sports portfolio committee said Sascoc remains an ”elitist organisation” that is out of touch with ordinary sports organisations.
It ”vowed to fight the action taken by … Sascoc to boycott the committee on the basis that it could not engage in a constructive manner with the chairperson”.
The committee said that in terms of parliamentary rules, Sascoc is not in any position to give instructions to organisations.
”We take serious note of what Mr [Sascoc president Moss] Mashishi has said, and we will not sit back. We will invite him to a meeting to come and explain what he meant when he said he would boycott all meetings of the committee,” it said.
In its statement, the DA cited several instances of what it says demonstrates Komphela ”never had a clear understanding of his role in sports”. These include:
- In April 2007, he threatened to withhold the passports of the Springbok team travelling to the Rugby World Cup ”if the team is not representative”;
- In February this year, he launched a scathing attack on Cricket SA general manager Gerald Majola over racial quotas in the Proteas team, despite the fact that Sports Minister Makhenkesi Stofile had announced that quotas have no place in sports;
- In May this year, he said ”the population of this country is 80:20, or 90:10. Black people in this country can’t be lesser than 80% and so should be the reflection of every South African team”; and
- Last week, he said that ”South Africa’s Olympic governing body is full of whites and Indians who don’t understand transformation and who lack vision for it”.
Further, Komphela regularly treats opposition MPs with ”disdain and disrespect”.
South Africa has come a long way in its efforts to build a non-racial society, and Komphela’s racially divisive behaviour has no place in it, the DA said.
”The speaker must therefore take action against him, and consolidate the commitment to non-racialism in South Africa,” Lee said. — Sapa