South Africa to clear P2.5m Youth Games debt
Calistus Kolantsho | Friday February 14, 2020 12:00
Mozambique is also in arrears, with P300,000 over due, after the country paid 50% of the participation fee before the games. Angola owes P50,000.
African Union Sport Council (AUSC) Region 5 chief executive officer, Stanley Mutoya said South Africa has committed to clearing the debt while Mozambique has been asked to come up with a payment plan.
Mutoya does not rule out communication breakdown in the case of the Portuguese-speaking Mozambique.
He said Mozambique were forced to trim their squad due to financial difficulties.
“SASCOC chief executive officer (CEO) called me on Tuesday at the instruction of the minister to call and give us their commitment on the basis of the decisions that were made by the Council of Ministers meeting in Lesotho that they would be settling their bill before March. It is not saying that rules should be bent but they should not be insensitive to the member states,” he said.
Mutoya said countries had to commit in writing and that is why South Africa was allowed to participate without paying.
“South Africa brought the biggest team, second to Botswana. Imagine if they did not participate. What was going to happen to the games?” he said. He added there are also penalties for late payments.
Mutoya said a lot happened at SASCOC, which made it difficult for government to release funding to the organisation.
“If South Africa and Mozambique do not pay, they would not be allowed in the next games. Regulations say if a country is in bad standing with the region after a year they lose certain privileges, after two years they are not allowed to participate in activities, to vote or take part in regional activities,” he said. Mutoya said the regulations state that countries should pay participation fees before the games.
“The games are owned by the Ministers of Sport and they are run on behalf of the governments in the region. The ministers have taken these games not as a high performance project but as a development project that should help countries to develop their athletes. They are meant to create more competition for our people. Africa does not have a lot of age based competitions,” he said.
Mutoya said even though there are regulations, the ministers have the prerogative to look into case by case. Angola also failed for the 2018 games.
“In the past editions there were some exceptions where countries were allowed on merit upon presenting their issues and challenges that they would be going through for those challenges to be considered by the ministers,” he said.
Mutoya said the three cases (Angola, Mozambique and South Africa) were heard by the Council of Ministers under their Secretariat guidance depending on the merit of the cases.
He said that is why the three countries were allowed to participate. Mutoya said the matters were discussed during the ministers’ ordinary session in Lesotho last year in the presence of South Africa’s minister of sport.
“When such cases are at that level we cannot challenge them.
There is also diplomatic etiquette that is also expected when we run these games. We, as administrators on the ground, are not the politicians that make decisions on the basis of diplomatic status of any country.
We are then not qualified to challenge the ministers’ decisions when it comes to leniency or understanding the concepts of any country,” he said.
Mutoya said sport could not survive as an entity alone as governments have other priorities.
“It is not peculiar to the 2018 games. I am not saying it is right. The ministers look on the cases on merit and balance the objectives of the games and the need for our countries to be understood in terms of their challenges,” Mutoya said.
He said they understand that Local Organising Committees (LOC) have to function and that is why there are regulations.
“What would happen if countries say they cannot participate because they cannot pay? What happens to the games? Every country in our region goes through challenges. These are not Olympic Games, they are not commercial games. They are a benchmark platform for high performance,” he added.