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Good morning!

It is important to remind all of us converged here this morning that one of the cruellest legacies of apartheid was its distortion of sport and recreation in our society. Its particular feature was the enforced segregation of these activities and the gross neglect in providing facilities for the majority of South Africans. This has denied millions of people and particularly our youth the right to a normal and healthy life. It is not amazing that the youth of our country knows very little about indigenous games.

On Saturday the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture and the Northern Province Athletic Association will be honouring the Premier, Adv. Ngoako Ramatlhodi, as one of the unsung heroes within the athletic fraternity. The Premier will take active participation in this marathon which is named in his honour - Premier Half Marathon. Myself and other MECs as well as mayors and municipal councillors will join him in the marathon.

As these public representatives will be outshining each other in the marathon, they will be reminding all and sundry in the Northern Province that sport and recreation are integral parts of reconstructing and developing a healthier society. The impact thereof extends beyond the confines of participation.

As government we remain committed to ensure that development programmes are accessible and affordable to all South Africans, including those in rural areas, for women, the young and the elderly.

In the Northern Province, athletics is one such example of accessible sport for our rural communities. As a result this province is proud of its prominent athletes such as veteran Titus Mamabolo, the upcoming Azwindini Lukhwareni and Mbhulaheni Mulaudzi, to name a few. We are proud of these true sons of the province for being such outstanding and good role models. It is clear in my mind that, we can still do better only if we have better sporting and recreational facilities.

One such reconstruction and development programme the government is engaged in is the " Building for Sport and Recreation " which is a poverty relief program allocating funds for development of sport and recreation infra-structure for rural development and urban renewal. Our province has been allocated R12m for restoring and renovating the existing sports facilities to a re-usable condition.

On the other hand we face the urgent task of ensuring demographic representation of our athletic teams. We need to urgently remove the obstacles that preclude specific sections of the community from participating in development programmes. This crusade cannot be left entirely in the hands of individual sporting codes and local communities both of which require support and encouragement. As government we are prepared to play a significant role in transforming sport.

Already my office has launched a process of auditing sport federations both at district and provincial level. The objective of this effort is to ensure that we have legitimate sports federations which have proper constitutions, clear development programmes and are representative of the demographics of our province. As soon as this process is concluded, we will focus on the process of launching a permanent provincial sports and recreation council.

The development and reconstruction of this country is not the responsibility of government alone. I therefore call upon business to take athletics as one of the important sporting code which deserves massive financial support for it to grow. We believe sport has a role to reduce crime and improve the physical fitness and health of our society. It will only achieve that ability if is strongly supported with resources.

We cannot allow the old trend of the great trek of our athletes to Gauteng for green pastures. We owe them a better environment for their abilities to find expression without fail.

I want to comment you members of the media for publicising our sports events to ensure that the public is aware and take active participation in such programmes. Your support is always appreciated.

I THANK YOU

Issued by Sport, Arts and Culture, Northern Province

15 November 2001