Huge ‘game changer’ for province
Tshwete sports event will ‘boost development’
THE decision to focus solely on the Steve Vukile Tshwete Games will improve sport development in the province.
This is according to provincial programmes manager for community development and social cohesion at the SA Local Government Association (Salga) Khosi Msimka.
Msimika said they identified that they were using the same athletes in two different games and they needed to do something in order to meet everyone involved half way.
“We used to have the premier games and then the following week we would have the Salga games. As Salga we saw that as a waste of resources, and also for the athletes it was too much for them – to play two weeks in a row. So we thought we should merge these games.
“We started merging the games last year following an agreement we have with the two other stakeholders. “We have signed a memorandum of understanding between Salga Eastern Cape, department of sport, recreation, arts and culture [Dsrac] and the Eastern Cape Sports Confederation,” said Msimka.
She said the merger of the two tournaments (Salga & Premier Games) had made matters easy for them as they were now able to bring the resources that each stakeholder used to fund the games.
“Now it’s much smoother because we have divided the resources such that we know who is responsible for what. We sharing the responsibilities and the hosting municipalities is also on the ground in terms of looking at the fields that the games are hosted on and other logistics involved and we have the terms of reference – how each stakeholder will be participating in the games.”
Msimka said the purpose of the games was to encourage and promote mass participation in sport, especially in disadvantaged communities and to afford the youth in the province an opportunity to live healthy lifestyles.
“That will assist in keeping them away from crime and other social ills around the province and so far, so good because we are happy.
“Since this is the second annual Steve [Vukile] Tshwete games, we have seen much progress from last year so we’ll be looking to go even bigger next year.”
Dsrac senior sport development manager Bafundi Makubalo said according to his observations, the teams from districts were prepared to battle it out for the top spot and that was a good sign.
“We are very happy because they look prepared and the standard is very high because you can see the competition among the teams. You can also see that kids will be looking forward to these games each and every year from now on.
“Most of the confederations are completing this afternoon, so we’ll get tangible results and then the official award ceremony will be tomorrow [Friday] morning. In terms of the prizes there’s a new floating Steve Vukile Tshwete trophy for the overall winner of the games and other prizes up for grabs.”