The lessons learned from organising a successful Soccer World Cup must serve as a template for better delivery, President Jacob Zuma said on Wednesday.
“The tournament has ended, but the legacy must live on and must inspire us in the way we work,” he said during a debate on the tournament in Parliament.
“Let us take the spirit forward and use the lessons learned to build a better South Africa, a greater Africa.”
Opposition leader Helen Zille said the World Cup was a success because for once government officials worked together, committed to delivering on time.
They now had to apply the same approach to address South Africa’s vast social challenges and reduce red tape that was often side-stepped to make sure the country met its deadlines to host the tournament.
“World Cup deliverables were exempted from normal bureaucratic processes, and dealt with as ‘special cases’. All spheres of government aligned their efforts. We made cooperative governance work,” she told MPs.
She said the government did this “because every other risk paled into insignificance compared with the catastrophe of missing deadlines” set by Fifa.
“The World Cup was a rare case in which all role-players were incentivised to deliver quickly. This incentive is usually absent.
“We must set immutable deadlines to meet targets in addressing social challenges. If we can learn this lesson from the World Cup, and apply it in a way that does not erode our constitutional democracy, it will have been more than worth it.”
Threatening to reverse the gains
The Democratic Alliance leader warned that corruption and a perceived clampdown on freedom of expression were threatening to reverse the gains of having hosted the world’s biggest sporting event.
“I agree with [Cosatu secretary general] Zwelinzima Vavi when he says South Africa is becoming a predatory state,” Zille said.
“And the current assault on media freedom — which is being publicised worldwide — is undoing all that we achieved in the World Cup. We are starting to conform to the negative stereotype once again.”
Inkatha Freedom Party leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi said South Africans were bound to ask why the government could not meet basic challenges, but was able to do such a good job of hosting the World Cup.
“If we are able to do all this, our people are certainly going to ask why we are not able to address the daily challenges they face,” he said.
“Why can we not fix a pothole in Atteridgeville? Why does it take months to deliver basic services to the poorest of our communities?
“These questions are bound to be on the lips of our people in the wake of our greatest success. For better or worse, we have raised the bar, and now we must rise to meet it.” — Sapa