‘We can still host events’
POSITIVE: MULTISPORT SPECTACLES NOT OUT OF REACH – MINISTER
‘SA could have staged Commonwealth Games on reduced budget.’
Despite losing the 2022 Commonwealth Games, Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula insists South Africa still has the ability to host major international sporting events.
But he admits a multisport spectacle may be a dream for future generations.
“We’ll keep soldiering on and we’ll get our opportunity next time. Probably not by us but by generations to come,” Mbalula said yesterday, less than 24 hours after Durban was stripped of the hosting rights for the spectacle.
Speaking at a media conference in reaction to the Commonwealth Games Federation’s (CGF) decision, Sport and Recreation SA director-general Alec Moemi claimed Durban could have hosted the Games had the ruling body allowed South Africa to hold the event on a reduced budget.
“We were ready to host, but unfortunately that decision is not ours. It’s with the CGF,” Moemi said.
Although the CGF said the coastal city had lost the hosting rights for various reasons after failing to meet numerous deadlines, Moemi claimed the budget was the main concern.
Cabinet had initially agreed to commit to R4.3 billion of the R6.4 budget but with the CGF insisting it would require additional funding and requesting government sign an open ended guarantee, Moemi said it would be fiscally irresponsible to meet the international body’s demands.
“If the bar is put higher than the threshold – and we say we have a proven case study in the [1999] All Africa Games that it can be done at much less than you are asking us to put on the table – then we should have been allowed to do the best the country has, and there’s no way we would embarrass the country,” Moemi said.
The Games bid had cost R118 million, with Durban winning a lone race in September 2015 to become the first African city to earn the hosting rights. An economic impact study predicted a potential R20 billion boost to the economy if Durban had retained the rights. –