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Cape Town - The sports and recreation minister is holding out a begging bowl for a portion of the ticket sales for sporting events that will be used for sports development.
Fikile Mbalula said during a media session in Parliament on Wednesday that he is grateful for the extra R18.1m that his department was allocated, but he had to find other ways in which to raise money for sports development.
“Ticket levies is but one way to do it,” he said.
He hastened to add that it did not mean ticket prices would increase as a result of it.
“It means we want to benefit from the tickets you buy but it does not mean an increase in ticket prices. Some people will exaggerate and blow this out of proportion to say Mbalula wants to increase ticket prices and start a revolt. This is not e-tolls. We are saying what you pay for tickets we want a part of it. So for every R20 for example we want R5 or R2 that will go into developing sport. That is what tourism is doing.”
The income that Mbalula would expect from this venture has not yet been determined, and he also did not know how they would spend the money.
“We must expand our horizons. The government is our only source of income and has competing priorities. And ticket prices are in any case determined by market forces.”
The budget debate for sports and recreation took place in Parliament yesterday, and Mbalula made it clear that there would be no cocktails, as is customary for most government departments, afterwards.
