Cape Town - The ANC in the legislature has accused the City of Cape Town of undermining school sport after the postponement of the Table Bay Zone inter-schools athletics event when it failed to grant a permit for the event as scheduled last Thursday.
Khalid Sayed, the ANC provincial spokesperson on education, said: “This is outrageous. Through its uncaring attitude and sloppy management, the City has spoilt the day for several schools and their pupils. Clearly this City does not care about young people.”
Sayed said disciplinary action must be taken against those responsible, and that an immediate apology to the affected schools was urgently needed.
Western Cape Education Department (WCED) spokesperson Bronagh Hammond said the department was aware of the cancellation of the event, which was regrettable.
She said an official from the WCED was in contact with the City, and the matter has since been resolved and all future planned events were to continue as planned.
Table Bay Zone High School Athletics chairperson Dawn Crowie said it managed to reschedule the event for the day after at Green Point Stadium.
Crowie said the reason for not being granted the permit was purely as a result of a delay in confirmation of dates by the City.
“The Table Bay Zone had applied for Thursday in November 2021 and only received confirmation on January 26. Subsequently, we submitted all required documentation to the events office via Western Province Athletics on January 27,” she said.
She said the reason for that late notification was that they were promised answers and waited until 9.45pm last Wednesday, in the hope of receiving a positive response or the permit.
“We have consulted with every possible department in the City – Department of Sport, Department of Education, and almost the entire mayoral committee – for intervention,” Crowie said.
She said schools had to incur additional costs, which included rearranging transport, school plans or programmes and the sudden change impacted on their days.
City spokesperson Luthando Tyhalibongo said the initial non-approval of the event permit by the City’s events office was in line with City processes as the application was received late.
Tyhalibongo said the City immediately engaged with the affected parties and the athletics governing bodies. It was understood that the late application was due to additional measures put in place by Athletics South Africa (ASA) during the state of disaster to ensure all Covid-19 protocols were strictly adhered to, thereby enabling the children to participate in a healthy and safe environment.
“As per the ASA directive, all applications by schools to host athletic meetings must be approved and vetted by the provincial athletics body, such as the Western Province Athletics (WPA),” Tyhalibongo said.
He said that was a new and additional step in the process when applying to host an athletics meeting, and as that was the first application to go through the process, certain delays were experienced. “The permitting process and external requirements have been discussed between the City and WPA to ensure that no such delays occur in the future,” he said.
He said the City was pleased to advise that all applications received by the Table Bay zones have subsequently been approved for the season.