Provide three reasons why sport and recreation are important for South Africans
Answers
Answer:
1. Increasing the levels of participation in sport and recreation activities.
2. Raising sport's profile in the face of conflicting priorities.
3. Maximising the probability of success in major events.
Placing sport in the forefront of efforts to reduce the levels of crime.
Sport continues to be short-changed with regard to the allocation of resources because of the lack of knowledge of those at decision-making level, of its role in society as well as its potential as an instrument of transformation. The situation is worse in the case of recreation. Our ongoing campaign to educate decision-makers about this role will continue but we are happy to note that sport is included in the good causes that will be beneficiaries of the planned national lottery.
In the meantime, however, it has been impossible to stretch the available resources to accommodate the more than 35 million potential participants who only began to matter in 1994. It is in this context that I have sympathy with the disillusionment that continues to characterise the majority of the country's citizens.
The pace of change and the impatience resulting from unmet expectations constitute a challenge that this Ministry encounters on a daily basis. The absence of sport and recreation facilities in the disadvantaged communities must rank as one of the cruelest legacies of apartheid.
It is not, however, proper to attribute all problems to our apartheid past, as many of the problems continue to exist because of inefficiencies that result from self-interest and failure to acknowledge the demands of the 21st century, amongst other things.