Africa-Press – South-Africa. Sport, arts and culture minister Gayton McKenzie acted illegally when his department summarily slashed funding to sports bodies earlier this year, the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) said in a statement on Thursday.
Sascoc president Barry Hendricks, asking McKenzie to adhere to the Sports and Recreation Act and the national sports plan, said despite one-on-one meetings between federations and the minister and his department, the status quo remained.
“Funding to Sascoc and the national federations has not been reviewed.”
The Sascoc statement highlighted a few areas in which it believed McKenzie contravened legislation and accepted procedure and also explained the effect of the cuts where federations saw their annual grants slashed by up to 60%, though a few bodies, such as Sascoc, received nothing.
According to the statement, Sascoc CEO Nozipho Jafta said:
there had been a breach in the multiyear funding agreements signed between federations and the department;
any decision to reallocate Sascoc’s funds should have followed a detailed process and received approval from National Treasury which, it believed, had not been obtained; and
changing the funding agreements undermined the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act “by reducing the capacity of state institutions to comply with [the act’s] requirements for lawful, reasonable and procedurally fair administrative action”.
The cuts also meant Sascoc and the federations faced reputational risk with their stakeholders, including the International Olympic Committee, corporate sponsors, the public and athletes, coaches, administrators and technical officials.
Sascoc also pointed out that sports bodies had made financial commitments on the basis that the signed agreements with the department would be honoured.
“The announcement of funding cuts midstream directly undermines these initiatives and, in most cases, jeopardises the survival of the affected national federations’ sport development activities at grass-roots level, equally affecting talent identification opportunities.
“Furthermore, such midstream changes erode trust and creates operational instability across the entire sporting sector.”
Jafta also pointed out that the cuts would negatively affect McKenzie’s Project 350, which targets qualifying 300 Olympians and 50 Paralympians for the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
“Global trends and reports show other countries such as the US, Britain and China, among others, receiving increased funding from their governments for preparation towards LA28, while South Africa is doing the opposite.”
Sascoc high performance GM Leon Fleiser said financial security was critical for athletes.
“This latest setback will have a negative effect on athlete preparation, with the [Olympics and Paralympics] less than three years away.”
McKenzie recently confirmed that R82m had been budgeted to bring VAR to top-level local football.
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