McKenzie’s officials taken to task over decision to take money from federations for VAR

Gayton McKenzie’s departmental officials were taken to task in parliament on Tuesday over the decision to take R62m from cash-strapped sports federations and give it to video assistant referee (VAR).

National treasury recently blocked McKenzie’s planned reallocation, meaning money will go back to the sports bodies, though it approved R20m for the video project, for which McKenzie had budgeted R82m.

But some members of the Portfolio Committee for Sport, Arts and Culture grilled department managers, with one common theme of questions centring on the reason for initially cutting grants to federations.

They pointed out that at the time McKenzie referred to poor governance by bodies and he promised a new funding model for sport.

But Leah Potgieter said the explanations offered on Tuesday were vague, adding the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture (DSAC) had been unable to explain the cuts.

Yet DSAC had helped the South African Football Association (Safa) with an additional R5m allocation when it couldn’t pay salaries.

“And yet we’re defunding federations on sort of vague general ideas across the entire sector. What I would like from the department are the substantive reasons for the request to reallocate the money originally.”

Potgieter asked DSAC CFO Israel Mokgwamme what financial controls the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) had lacked in order to have received no funding from government.

The CFO replied that there were no issues with Sascoc’s financial reporting.

Azwihangwisi Muthambi (ANC) asked how far along the minister’s new funding model was, and Mokgwamme replied that it wasn’t even at 50%.

What we’re trying to do is move money around for nice-to-have issues instead of ensuring that we are developing sport within the country and I don’t think it’s acceptable.

—  Leah Potgieter

Potgieter insisted the CFO’s answers were unsatisfactory.

“The department doesn’t seem able to provide substantive reasons for the reallocation, and it’s very clear that that reallocation was done in order to fund something else,” she said.

“And to me, to make that [the reallocation] then about the fact that there’s been noncompliance or that funding was withdrawn because federations aren’t performing is completely outside of what actually happened …

“So here we have … defunding of federations in order to fund the VAR, which I understand is something that will make the sport better.

“But it’s being done at the expense of other federations.”

Potgieter stated further that the funding saga demonstrated the lack of a holistic funding strategy for sport. “There doesn’t appear to be a coherent plan on how we’re going to develop sports.”

She insisted there was no reason to cut funding to sports bodies other than to secure VAR.

“What we’re trying to do is move money around for nice-to-have issues instead of ensuring that we are developing sport within the country and I don’t think it’s acceptable.

“And I know why we didn’t get a presentation with substantive reasons for the defunding and the reallocation, because there aren’t any.”