Speech of the Minister of Sport and Recreation
(SRSA), Mr. FA Mbalula (MP), on the occasion of the
donation of sport equipment and attire to the
Mhlontlo Local Municipality’s sports clubs and
communities,
Oliver Reginald Tambo District Municipality, Eastern
Cape Province, Republic of South Africa.
17 March 2011
Programme
Director
and
Chief
Whip
of
the
ANC:
OR
Tambo
Municipality, Cllr Nkompela;
Members of the Executive Council (MEC’s) present here today;
Leadership of the African National Congress both Regional and Local;
Members and Leadership of the entire movement;
Mayors and Councilors who are present here in this gathering;
The Traditional Leadership who are here to grace this event;
Members and Leadership of the Council of Churches;
Leadership and representatives of SAFA who are here with us today;
Lottery Board members and representatives of the Distribution
Agency;
Community Leaders as well as women and youth leadership in this
gathering;
Sports men and women present here today;
Ladies and Gentlemen;
Fellow South Africans;
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Bantu
baku-Masipala
ngalenjikalanga.
wase-Mhlontlo
Sinibulisa
sinelizwi
neeziphaluka;
eliphuma
siyanibulisa
kuRhulumente
wombutho wesizwe, u-African National Congress, i-ANC.
Silapha namhlanje sinovuyo olukhulu ngento enisenzeleyona; yokuba
nisimeme sibelapha kunye nani, size kulomyadala umkhulu kangaka;
kulombhiyozo undiliseke ngoluhlobo. Sithi mazenethole mawethu!
Siyanazi kethina, anithethi kungavelinto.
Sithe sova ikhwelo lenu.
Saqonda ukuba ikhwelo linetyala apha kwaXhosa; siyabulela mzi
wakwaXhosa.
Sithi makudede ubumnyama kuvele ukukhanya.
Kube kuhle, kube
hele!
Ladies and Gentlemen, it is a great honour and privilege for me to
come here and be with you today in this important gathering under
the theme “sport skills and youth development” in the Mhlontlo
Municipality.
By doing this, we also pay a fitting tribute to the son of the soil, the
leader of the African National Congress and the father of our nation,
comrade Oliver Reginald Tambo who this District Municipality is named
after. We also pay homage to all our martyrs from Tsolo and Qumbu
as well as all the surrounding villages under the leadership of the OR
Tambo Municipality who fought tirelessly against the brutal apartheid
system for a better life for all South Africans.
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We remember vividly when these martyrs where in combat in the
‘well-known nine frontier wars of resistance or Xhosa Wars in defence
of our heritage.
These wars were all fought in defence of the land
against the pillaging mobs of colonial armies and our forces were
under the command of the great traditional leaders of this part of
South Africa, the Eastern Cape against the European forces.
It is here in this part of our country that South Africa produced
seasoned cadres and leaders of the African National Congress, the
South African Communist Party as well as matured trade unionists.
Without doubt, Eastern Cape is the land of the well nurtured leadership
of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) in the likes of Oliver
Tambo, Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Raymond
Mhlaba, Steve Tshwete, Chris Hani as well as Thabo Mbeki and many
more.
We want to say, this afternoon, their blood was not in vain; in fact,
their blood watered the tree of freedom we enjoy today. We want to
say again to all these gallant fighters, their war against apartheid was
not a lost war; it was a victorious battle against powerful apartheid
colonial machinery. They did so to defend the land of our forefathers
whilst at the same time defending their movement, the African
National Congress (ANC).
Without fear of contradiction, indeed, the Eastern Cape Province
epitomizes the cradle of the struggle for freedom and liberty. At the
same time this Province is an epitome of sport and recreation in South
Africa from cricket, rugby, boxing and etc. What we need to do now is
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to revive these sporting codes from where they were before. We need
to encourage more young people to participate in sport and recreation.
Ladies and Gentlemen, when I was here in 2009 I watched Veterans
playing sport in this field. I promised this community and its leaders
that I will come back to this village to contribute meaningfully towards
the development of sport and recreation. I was not paying any lip
service or making empty promises; I am here today to deliver on that
promise.
I am doing this because I am convinced that here at Mhlontlo, the
people are faced with a plethora of challenges and the ANC led
government is charged, together with you, to resolve these challenges.
It is true that Mhlontlo Municipality is overwhelmingly rural with
pockets of peri-urban areas with a total number of the households of
about fifty one thousands (51 000) as compared to the 44 500 in
2008.
The majority of these people are said to be unemployed and
lack sufficient formal education as a result they fall prey to social
exclusion and income inequality.
The majority of these socially
excluded inhabitants are young people under the age of 35; of which
the sizeable number being women.
It is in this regard that Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA)
committed itself to help the Municipality to intervene in this situation
and develop a programme to push back the ‘frontiers of poverty,
underdevelopment and ignorance’.
We will begin by encouraging all
people of Mhlontlo, especially young people to participate in sport and
recreation. We are here, today, to do just that!
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We know that by this intervention we will assist this community,
through sport and recreation, to deal with all the ills of society
including crime and criminality, living healthy lifestyles, fighting
against drugs and alcohol abuse, fighting the scourge of teenage
pregnancy and HIV/AIDS as well as becoming active in sport and
recreation.
I know that this part of the Eastern Cape Province is having many
active sports clubs and teams but they lack support and equipment.
We are therefore here to support that.
We are encouraged by your
activism in sport and recreation by involving yourselves in numerous
sporting activities in order to develop your sporting skills whilst in the
same token contribute meaningful in the development of society. We
can not leave this talent unnoticed!
However, we would like you to establish and strengthen organs of
peoples’ power through the establishment strong and strengthening
the Local Sports Councils, Schools Sport Codes Structures and any
other strategic organ of people’s power to assist to revive and
strengthen sport and recreation in our communities.
We want sport veterans and traditional leaders to help us to mobilize
communities to show interest in sport. We want them to register to
become part of the Sport and Recreation Volunteer Corps to transfer
their sporting skills to the youth especially the sporting youth in
schools and communities. We want our sporting veterans to register
for coaching courses with the SRSA and SASCOC in order to sharpen
their coaching and sport skills for the better.
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As a start-up programme, today, we will donate different sport
equipments and 260 sport attire (kits) to 32 sport clubs in this area. I
will together with your leadership distribute all these donations
immediately after this speech. We want you to become one of those
South Africans who are also respected in the field of Sport both in
Africa and the world.
Thus today we are donating the sport equipment and the sport Attire.
We will, after consultation, come back to this area to build a sports
hub right here on this field. We will go back to our head office and
consult with relevant stakeholders on the roll-out of the sports hubs
across the country. In our observation it will be befitting to construct
one sports hub here at Tsolo to be utilized by the entire OR Tambo
District communities and Local Municipalities.
We identified the construction of this sports hub or sports multipurpose centre in this area to accommodate emerging different
sporting codes established by young people in this area. In the same
token we are informed of the challenges you face regarding to the
disqualification of your soccer clubs by SAFA inspectorate due to the
poor quality of soccer pitches and other sporting fields in this area.
We know that good soccer teams are forced to be sold to areas with
quality standard of pitches in order to play at Vodacom Competitions.
We would like to believe by constructing a sport hub on this field will in
one way or the other go a long way to assist the different soccer clubs
and/or sports codes to be of quality standard as to qualify to compete
in the quality and higher tournaments.
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It also came to our attention that the challenge of sanitation and water
in this part of this province is one of the things that hinder the
development of our athletes.
Without clean and healthy water and
sound sanitation our athletes can not prosper.
Diarrhea and other
related diseases caused by dirty and unhealthy sanitation and water is
a hindrance to the success of any athlete. In our discussions with the
Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs on
issues of sport facilities, we would include this matter as a matter of
urgency because we believe a healthy standard of living is leading into
a healthy lifestyle.
Notwithstanding the poor quality of roads in this area; where our
athletes are exposed to unnecessary car accidents when they practice
athletics in the mornings and evenings. Our athletes especially school
going youth are hit by unsuspecting drivers because of the poor nature
and standard of our roads in this area. The safety of our athletes is
high on our agenda. We will also, together with our counter-parts in
cabinet, look at possibilities of dealing with dire challenge of road
construction and road safety for safer sport and recreation in our
country.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the ANC is today charged with a responsibility
to
“build
more
united,
non-racial,
integrated
communities
and
sustainable rural communities. The government you fought and voted
for is “improving services for all our people and is seized with a task to
broaden access for all”. The democratic state you fought and voted for
is working with all spheres of government and people to build more
effective, accountable and clean local government.
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We say to all of
you together with the developmental state; we will continue to
strengthen community participation at all levels of our government.
Silivile ikhwelo lenu bantu bakuthi singuRhulumente we ANC, sithe
masisabele ngokukhawuleza. Indlebe lityala mzi wakwa Xhosa, sizwe
sakowethu! Sisivile iSandi senu!
Enkosi!
Thank you.
END!
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