The chairperson of Parliament’s portfolio committee on sport, arts and culture will report the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture (DSAC) to the Speaker over officials who fail to attend its meetings.
Joe McGluwa said the committee could no longer tolerate the department’s attitude.
“This letter will then be submitted tomorrow to the Speaker’s office, because we cannot operate in this fashion, and we cannot tolerate this attitude of the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture,” he said.
“We are sick and tired of the fact that they are treating this committee the way they did, with no decency to ask for apology from this meeting.”
McGluwa was speaking on Tuesday evening, during the committee’s meeting with Boxing South Africa.
He said no one from the department’s chief financial officer’s office was present, even though Boxing SA receives about R21 million a year from the department.
“This is a very important meeting. The CFO’s office is not present. This is a meeting with Boxing South Africa that received R21 million from the department, and they are absent. It’s unacceptable. We did not receive any apology from anyone leaving this meeting,” he said.
McGluwa asked Deputy Sport Minister Peace Mabe to note that the department’s CFO was away on an oversight visit, and that the acting CFO was also absent.
Mabe agreed that absences had become a problem.
“Yesterday we did agree with the team, and we did a checklist that everybody must be present, because now it is becoming a very disturbing norm that every time people are supposed to come and account, they are not here,” she said.
“We’re not happy with that at all, especially that we did reflect on it yesterday in our planning meeting.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Sport Minister Gayton McKenzie and the director-general were also absent when the committee met the South African Institute for Drug-Free Sport. Acting director-general Vusithemba Ndima stood in.
Last week, McKenzie missed the committee’s briefing by the Auditor-General to attend a Cricket World Cup event.
In June, the committee sent a DSAC delegation away because no senior official was present to account for the department’s fourth-quarter performance.
DSAC and the Ministry of Sport, Arts and Culture have been sent questions.