Cape Town – Sports and Recreation Minister Fikile Mbalula has announced a plan to “completely transform” the sporting landscape in South Africa.
His vision is to see sport federations being committed to a scorecard and a national sport charter. Currently there is no system in place to measure the success of transformation.
Mbalula told journalists on Wednesday that the quota system had failed and was “a drop in the ocean of African faces”. For example, there could be many black players in a team but only three would actually play on the field.
Transformation should be about integration, not race or replacing one race with another.
He said that that sport was about talent and achieving the best for the country.
The minister said they wanted to create a system that nurtured black people so that they achieve the best in sport as well as provide them an education on which to “fall back on”.
On Monday and Tuesday next week, several local and international stakeholders will gather in Johannesburg for a critical conference to discuss transformation at a sports indaba.
Mbalula said that plans for transformation should be aligned with the recently proposed National Development Plan 2030.
“South Africans have had an overdose of a plethora of Izindaba within and outside our sector that did not deliver fundamental paradigm shifts and liberating outcomes. No more talk shops. It’s time for change and action,” he said.
The minister said that time had come for South Africa to “confront her shameful past”, adding that this past was marked by issues such as slavery, imperialism and apartheid.
By Francis Hweshe, BuaNews