Dept to launch school sport programme

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Pretoria - The Department of Sport and Recreation is planning to unveil a programme, known as School Sport, to ensure active participation of various sporting codes in all schools across the country.

Sport and Recreation Minister Fikile Mbalula announced this on Tuesday in Parliament while presenting his budget policy statement.

"We will be launching School Sport before the end of June, after officially signing the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Department of Basic Education.

"Our fervent goal is to ensure that there is sport in each and every school in South Africa, which will culminate into a National Olympics Championship every year," he said.

According to Mbalula, all strategic stakeholders, including trade unions, universities and the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC), are on board.

He further reiterated that his department will continue to resolve to stabilise Boxing South Africa, starting with the appointment of a new board soon. However, Mbalula said they have already appointed Mandla Qithi, as the new CEO of Boxing SA.

"What we present to this House today is a Budget Policy Statement characterised by shrinkage from R1.255 billion in 2009/2010 to R802 million in the 2011/2012 financial year.

"Aggregated, in 2007/2008 financial year it stood at R5 billion, and to date, it stands at R802 million -- an annualised decrease of about 40 percent," he said.

The 2011 Budget allocates an additional R205.7 million over the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) period.