Struggling SA sports federations allotted average R6,000 increase each

Enoch Godongwana’s budget will offer little respite to the country’s cash-strapped national sports federations, which can look forward to an average increase of R6,000 each in the coming year.

The finance minister on Wednesday set aside R117.5m — 8% of the sport budget — for “various sport federations”, which translates into an increase of R450,000, or 0.38%, on the R117.1m appropriation for the current year.

Most of South Africa’s 75-odd sports bodies were up in arms last year over the late approval of funding applications by the department of sport, arts and culture (DSAC), as well as the ad hoc nature of the annual grants.

The department has said it is looking at funding cycles of three years.

The budget is estimating that sports federations will see an increase to R122.8m next year and R128.3m for 2025/26.

The sport budget for the 12 months starting April 1 is almost R1.45bn, which is 23% of the R6.36bn allocation to DSAC.

The South African Institute for Drug-Free Sport will receive R29.78m and the Sports Trust R25.8m.

Boxing South Africa, which regulates the professional arm of the sport and once used to be entirely self-funded through sanctioning and licence fees, will cost the taxpayer a fraction short of R20m.

Sport South Africa, previously known as Sascoc, has been  allocated R12m.

Figures in the budget document showed that participation levels were far below what they’d been before the Covid-19 pandemic.

In 2019/20 the department measured just more than 462,000 people “actively participating in organised sport and active recreation events”.

That dropped to 58,439 in 2020/21 and climbed to 332,000 in 2021/22, but was expected to drop to 315,000 by the end of this financial year on March 31.

DSAC’s administration costs were set at R454.7m, almost a third of the total sport budget. Salaries are expected to account for R385m of that.

The remainder of DSAC’s budget will see R2.66bn going to heritage promotion and preservation and  R1.79bn to arts and culture promotion and development.

“Expenditure is expected to increase at an average annual rate of 0.7%, from R6.3bn in 2022/23 to R6.4bn in 2025/26,” read the budget on sport, arts and culture.

“The department’s total budget amounts to R18.9bn over the next three years, which includes a baseline increase of R26.4m for cost-of-living adjustments.”

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