Budget to celebrate E Cape icons
Mandela, Ma Sisulu anniversaries
THE Eastern Cape department of sport, recreation, arts and culture (DSRAC) will be going big on Nelson Mandela and Albertina Sisulu centenary celebrations, according to MEC Pemmy Majodina yesterday.
Majodina was delivering the department’s policy speech at the Bhisho legislature.
She revealed that, among other Mandela centenary related programmes, R11-million had been set aside to identify and mobilise clubs that will be celebrating 100 years and prioritise them for resourcing.
Also, R600 000 was allocated for the erection of a humansize statue of the late statesman, who would have turned 100 this year, at Mandela’s Qunu residence.
“The statue will enrich the province’s resistance and liberation heritage route and enhance strategic positioning and branding of the Eastern Cape as The Home of Legends,” said Majodina.
The Port Elizabeth Airport will be renamed to become the Nelson Mandela Airport and R900 000 was allocated for this.
This, said Majodina, would be part of the department’s bigger plan for 2018 to speed up transformation through the renaming of 100 places and geographical features to celebrate Madiba.
A further R2.5-million was allocated for memorial lectures dedicated to the life and times of Mandela.
These lectures will be spread across all six districts and two metropolitans of the province, each with a different theme.
In the Nelson Mandela Metro, the theme of the lecture will centre on “Nelson Mandela as the leader behind the Defiance Campaign” while the Amathole district edition will be themed “Nelson Mandela as an alumnus of the University of Fort Hare”.
The lecture to be hosted in his home district of O R Tambo will be titled “Nelson Mandela as a traditional leader”.
DSRAC was also planning to organise 67 hub festivals on July 18 to encourage physical activity for a healthy lifestyle.
To this end, Majodina called on MPLs to lead the charge.
She said all these endeavours were in the spirit of making the centenary a reallife celebration instead of a theoretical one.
Majodina kicked off her speech with a passionate rendition of an extract from former president Thabo Mbeki’s poem dedicated to Madiba and delivered in the National Assembly in 1999 during Madiba’s retirement.
But she added that Mama Sisulu should equally be celebrated.
“We pay homage and acknowledge the selfless and massive contribution the two giants of our struggle made to the country’s revolution, global peace and reconciliation,” said Majodina. —