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Sport, Arts and Culture permanent secretary Dr Thokozile Chitepo (centre) flanked by Sports and Recreation Commission Vice Chairperson Mr Edward Siwela (left) and Director of Finance, Administration and Human Resources in her ministry, Mr Philip Hamadziripi and officials behind give oral evidence before the Committee yesterday (pic by Lloyd Gumbo)

Lloyd Gumbo Herald Reporter
THE Ministry of Sport, Arts and Culture must get its priorities right than spending money on unnecessary things, Parliamentarians said yesterday. The MPs also demanded that sports associations submit to them records of sponsorships they received from donors.They made the remarks when officials from the Ministry of Sport, Arts and Culture and officials from its parastatals appeared before the Portfolio Committee on Education, Sport, Arts and Culture to review the budget allocations to the Ministry by Treasury.

Parliamentarians said this in response to submissions from head of delegation, the secretary for Sport, Arts and Culture, Thokozile Chitepo, who said her ministry got US$41 million towards the hosting of the Africa Zone V1 Under-20 Youth Games set for Bulawayo in December this year.

The Ministry, Chitepo said, requested about US$50 million for hosting the Games, which would have seen them building a Games Village at the National University of Science and Technology.

Chitepo said her Ministry submitted a bid of about US$91 million to the Ministry of Finance but was allocated about US$10, 5 million which, she said, fell far short of their requirements.

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She said ideally, the Games Village would be used by NUST students after the Games.

But committee chairperson, Themba Mliswa, said the Ministry’s priorities were wrong.

“We are dealing with people who understand sport, who have been to school and we are very concerned with sport,” he said.

“The last time we met, we clearly told you what is the point of the Zone V1 games? What is the point of building a US$49 million facility yet you are crying for money? Yet there is no money for development. We can stop that. Even countries that win a bid to host the World Cup, they say ‘we can’t’ and they stop because they don’t have enough.

“Your priorities are all wrong. After that how much money are you going to generate from that US$49 million facility?

“For me, no matter what you say, whether the Cabinet authorised it. But Cabinet authorised that because the Sports and Recreation Commission through the Ministry of Sport recommended that. And that was bad priority. Already in terms of the budget, you have only gotten US$4,1 million and now you are going to force (the) Government with the situation that it’s in, we are looking for money for food and inputs, to look for money to put in sports. What are people of Zimbabwe going to say?”

Mliswa said there was a high possibility that the facility at NUST would have ended as the Aquatic Complex in Chitungwiza that “became a white elephant that was used as a flea market than a sport facility”.

He said there was need for the Ministry and its sport associations account for all the money they received from sponsors.

Shurugwi South MP, Tapiwa Matangaidze, it was not wise for the Ministry to prioritise constructing another sporting facility when the country already had such facilities.

Buhera West legislator, Oliver Mandipaka, said there was need for good corporate governance in all sports disciplines.

“There is need for transparency and accountability in terms of what you get in. Apart from the sponsorship that you get maybe from business. What other areas are you are looking at or that you have been looking at that brings in money to augment the budget that we know we are operating under a sanctions regime and there is no way we can happen to have a large sums of money because of the economic situation,” he said.

In her response, Chitepo said they settled on renovating Hillside Teachers College in Bulawayo to house athletes during the Games after realising that they would not get the money to build the facility.

“What increased the bill was the plan to build a Games Village at NUST which was going to house, after the games, up to 3 000 to 4 000 people there.

“As soon as we received this indication from the Government, we said let us look at Plan B. Now we are going to use Hillside College,” she said.

Chitepo said the Ministry would ensure its sports associations avail the sponsorship records to the committee.

The meeting was attended by officials from Zifa, the Sports Commission, the Zimbabwe Olympic Committee and the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe.