Honourable Members, every government department exists to solve a problem. Some build roads. Some keep us safe. Some teach our children. This department exists to answer a different kind of problem: who are we, and what are we becoming? You cannot build a country only with just concrete and steel. You must also build it with stories, with songs and games, contests and tournaments – with the things people remember in their rocking chair. That is what we do here.
The Department of Sport, Arts and Culture has been allocated R6.617 billion for the 2026/27 financial year: to develop, transform, preserve, protect and promote sport, arts and culture, and through them, to build a nation that is active, creative, winning, and cohesive.
Dit is vir my ’n besondere voorreg om vandag hier voor u te kan staan, en ek doen dit nie as ’n besoeker by ’n ander gemeenskap se viering nie, maar as iemand vir wie hierdie taal die heel eerste was waarmee hy die wêreld leer ken het. Afrikaans is die taal van my mense, van my kinderjare, en van die innerlike gesprek wat ek met myself voer wanneer ek alleen is, en dit is uit hoofde van daardie verhouding — eerder as enige amptelike posisie — dat ek vandag met u praat.
Announcement of winners of the Mzansi to the world cup lucky fans competition.
This competition was about more than just winning a trip. It was about giving a platform to the voices of our people — the fans who stand by their teams through every victory and every challenge
We gather today to mark two milestones that belong not only to an institution, but to a continent. The 10th African World Heritage Day and the 20th anniversary of the African World Heritage Fund – twenty years of investing in something that cannot be replaced, cannot be replicated, and cannot be recovered once lost.
Good morning, and thank you for joining us here at Freedom Park – a site that holds our country's memory, and reminds us that sport, arts and culture are never separate from the long work of building a nation.
Your Excellency, I bring you the warmest greetings of President Cyril Ramaphosa, our Government of National Unity, and people of the Republic of South Africa.
Of all the birds taken from Great Zimbabwe in the colonial era, this one was taken first. It was the first to leave. And it is the last to come home.
Good afternoon.
I want to begin with a name.
The object we are returning today has been referred to, for 137 years, as "the Zimbabwe soapstone bird". In the colonial record, it has an accession number. It has dimensions. It has a provenance note. It has been described, catalogued, photographed, and cited in academic papers. In Cecil Rhodes's study at Groote Schuur, it sat on a cabinet among other items taken from other places, reduced by its placement and by the logic of its collector to a trophy.
Good afternoon members of the media, colleagues, and fellow South Africans.
Let me begin where millions of South Africans were this past weekend — watching one of the greatest spectacles in world football.
The Soweto Derby between Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates.
Toespraak: 50 Jaar van die Afrikaans taal museum en –monument
Let me start with an issue that has dominated headlines over the past few weeks – the so-called “yellow-card blunder” that threatened to derail Bafana Bafana’s World Cup qualification campaign.
When I heard that our national team had been docked three points, I requested a full report from SAFA following our successful qualification for the World Cup. Just because we survived the scare, that didn’t mean that we needed to sweep the matter under the carpet. I wrote to FIFA, too, to apologise for the embarrassment caused and to acknowledge that this was about ensuring accountability and that it would never happen again.