Executive Mayor of Nkangala District
Executive Mayor of Steve Tshwete Local Municipality
Members of the Mayoral Committee
Councillors
President of Mpumalanga Sport Federation
Athletes
Arts and Culture Forums
Artists
Ladies and Gentlemen
Distinguished Guests
Members of the Media
We are pleased that today we are gathered in this fashion to appreciate and recognize sporting and artistic excellence in the province and we are honouring the crème de la crème of Mpumalanga and these are people who have made us proud through their performances. It gives us great pleasure to celebrate winners and performers of high caliber who are zealously advancing our mandate of creating a winning province as we are known for podium finishes be it in sport, arts or recreation. So we have decided as a department that noble deeds and achievements of our sport stars and artists could not go unnoticed and we are commencing with a new era in the province which herald celebrating, nurturing and elevating excellence in the province to new levels.
We have travelled the length and breadth of the universe this year as citizens of Mpumalanga representing our province and country well in the fields of arts and sport. The notable achievements include the crowning of our Rolene Strauss as Miss World, crowning of our very own Mpumi Luphoko as Miss Tourism Universe, winning of our talented young man, Karabo Mogane as Idol for Season 11, promotion of Mbombela United into the National First Division and excellent performance by the Pumas in the top flight rugby and we therefore have reasons to pause and celebrate our athletes and artists who are good ambassadors of our province.
It is against this background that we have as a department called all of you to say indeed we have recorded milestones in various fields and we need to celebrate excellence with which our people in the province are known for as a way encouraging further excellent performance in the season ahead. We have committed ourselves to support our sports men and women as well as our artists so that they could excel and make the country realise that indeed Mpumalanga is a province of champions constituting of multi-talented individuals. We need not to rest on our laurels but we need to continue working hard and prove that we are a bunch of winners so that we could continue celebrating our achievements and rolling out the red carpet to our people who are known for high performance and not mediocrity.
Sport continues to be a unifying tool at our disposal and we will continue using it to realise our vision of creating a patriotic socially cohesive society in the province so that all our people could work together to build our province and country. As we work towards creating socially cohesive society, we need to address challenges that continue to frustrate us like lack of transformation in certain few sporting codes as we are committed to make all sporting codes accessible to all our people in the province irrespective of race and gender and we appeal to all federations to ensure that they meet transformation targets that we have together agreed upon. We will work with the Mpumalanga Sport Confederation to address and redress transformation challenges perpetuated by federations that are hostile towards transforming themselves.
We remain optimistic that all people in the province will rally behind provincial teams like Mpumalanga Black Aces, the Pumas, Witbank Spurs, Mpumalanga Sun Birds, Mpumalanga Indigenous Games Team, etc as our athletes deserve all the support as they represent the province in national and international championships. We also urge parents to support their children when they engage in sport as there is no greater joy among children than seeing their parents playing an active role in their extramural activities and this serves as a motivational weapon that will spur them to go for the extra mile and achieve milestones for our province.
Our vision is to see athletes from Mpumalanga dominating the South African Sport Awards so that we can showcase our sporting abilities to the rest of the country and we will work towards realizing this goal.
In the arts sector, we are doing very well and we want to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to millions of our people who overwhelmingly voted for Karabo Mogane to ensure that he emerged victorious at the recently concluded Idols Season 11. We have always dominated the Idols Seasons and this shows that Mpumalanga is immerse with artistic talents and we will continue to develop and expose this talent in platforms that will be relevant towards artists development and our programmes are equally responding to this mission and we will continue producing artists that could hold their own nationally.
Programme Director, we want to congratulate all those artists and sport stars who will be scooping awards tonight and to those who will be runners up, we are saying to them they need not to be demotivated as they are equally winners for having reached this level and this is a clear indication that they are top achievers of high note. We urge all of you to continue working hard so that you could continue flying the flag of our province high and make all of us proud. We also want to recognize members of the media who have partnered with us in various campaigns throughout the year as we rolled out services to our people in Mpumalanga. We appreciate your work as you indeed informed our people about our exciting programmes in a manner that is satisfying and we urge you to continue being reliable media houses that correctly informs our people.
I want to conclude by wishing all of you a happy festive season and I urge you to respect all the rules of the road as you go to various destinations. Let us all arrive alive.
I thank you!
Executive Mayor of Nkangala District
Executive Mayor of Steve Tshwete Local Municipality
Members of the Mayoral Committee
Councillors
President of Mpumalanga Sport Federation
Athletes
Arts and Culture Forums
Artists
Ladies and Gentlemen
Distinguished Guests
Members of the Media
We are pleased that today we are gathered in this fashion to appreciate and recognize sporting and artistic excellence in the province and we are honouring the crème de la crème of Mpumalanga and these are people who have made us proud through their performances. It gives us great pleasure to celebrate winners and performers of high caliber who are zealously advancing our mandate of creating a winning province as we are known for podium finishes be it in sport, arts or recreation. So we have decided as a department that noble deeds and achievements of our sport stars and artists could not go unnoticed and we are commencing with a new era in the province which herald celebrating, nurturing and elevating excellence in the province to new levels.
We have travelled the length and breadth of the universe this year as citizens of Mpumalanga representing our province and country well in the fields of arts and sport. The notable achievements include the crowning of our Rolene Strauss as Miss World, crowning of our very own Mpumi Luphoko as Miss Tourism Universe, winning of our talented young man, Karabo Mogane as Idol for Season 11, promotion of Mbombela United into the National First Division and excellent performance by the Pumas in the top flight rugby and we therefore have reasons to pause and celebrate our athletes and artists who are good ambassadors of our province.
It is against this background that we have as a department called all of you to say indeed we have recorded milestones in various fields and we need to celebrate excellence with which our people in the province are known for as a way encouraging further excellent performance in the season ahead. We have committed ourselves to support our sports men and women as well as our artists so that they could excel and make the country realise that indeed Mpumalanga is a province of champions constituting of multi-talented individuals. We need not to rest on our laurels but we need to continue working hard and prove that we are a bunch of winners so that we could continue celebrating our achievements and rolling out the red carpet to our people who are known for high performance and not mediocrity.
Sport continues to be a unifying tool at our disposal and we will continue using it to realise our vision of creating a patriotic socially cohesive society in the province so that all our people could work together to build our province and country. As we work towards creating socially cohesive society, we need to address challenges that continue to frustrate us like lack of transformation in certain few sporting codes as we are committed to make all sporting codes accessible to all our people in the province irrespective of race and gender and we appeal to all federations to ensure that they meet transformation targets that we have together agreed upon. We will work with the Mpumalanga Sport Confederation to address and redress transformation challenges perpetuated by federations that are hostile towards transforming themselves.
We remain optimistic that all people in the province will rally behind provincial teams like Mpumalanga Black Aces, the Pumas, Witbank Spurs, Mpumalanga Sun Birds, Mpumalanga Indigenous Games Team, etc as our athletes deserve all the support as they represent the province in national and international championships. We also urge parents to support their children when they engage in sport as there is no greater joy among children than seeing their parents playing an active role in their extramural activities and this serves as a motivational weapon that will spur them to go for the extra mile and achieve milestones for our province.
Our vision is to see athletes from Mpumalanga dominating the South African Sport Awards so that we can showcase our sporting abilities to the rest of the country and we will work towards realizing this goal.
In the arts sector, we are doing very well and we want to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to millions of our people who overwhelmingly voted for Karabo Mogane to ensure that he emerged victorious at the recently concluded Idols Season 11. We have always dominated the Idols Seasons and this shows that Mpumalanga is immerse with artistic talents and we will continue to develop and expose this talent in platforms that will be relevant towards artists development and our programmes are equally responding to this mission and we will continue producing artists that could hold their own nationally.
Programme Director, we want to congratulate all those artists and sport stars who will be scooping awards tonight and to those who will be runners up, we are saying to them they need not to be demotivated as they are equally winners for having reached this level and this is a clear indication that they are top achievers of high note. We urge all of you to continue working hard so that you could continue flying the flag of our province high and make all of us proud. We also want to recognize members of the media who have partnered with us in various campaigns throughout the year as we rolled out services to our people in Mpumalanga. We appreciate your work as you indeed informed our people about our exciting programmes in a manner that is satisfying and we urge you to continue being reliable media houses that correctly informs our people.
I want to conclude by wishing all of you a happy festive season and I urge you to respect all the rules of the road as you go to various destinations. Let us all arrive alive.
I thank you!