Parliament heaped praise on the country’s successful Paralympics team yesterday for bringing back a “treasure trove” of medals.
The Paralympians were hosted at a special joint sitting of the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces to congratulate the team on its performance at the 2012 London Paralympic Games, where the athletes bagged 29 medals.
Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula told Independent Newspapers before the joint sitting he would “make sure” the Paralympians’ promised cash incentives were sorted out should there be any problems in the sourcing of the funds.
This comes after the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) had to scramble to find the unbudgeted money when Mbalula took a decision that SA’s Paralympics medal winners’ financial incentives would be increased to equal those of their able-bodied counterparts.
They are to receive R400 000 for a gold medal, R200 000 for silver and R80 000 for bronze medals.
Before the announcement, paralympic athletes had been promised R100 000 for gold, R75 000 for silver and R40 000 for bronze medals because the playing fields were slightly different.
The team netted eight gold, 12 silver and nine bronze medals.
“Everything is being sorted out already. We will have to check this. I will definitely make sure that everything is sorted out. But there’s no problem,” said Mbalula.
He said “many countries take Paralympics seriously”.
“As a country, we are very proud of them, they did exceptionally well,” he added.
Mbalula dedicated his speech in the National Assembly to “the daughter of the soil”, Natalie du Toit.
“I would like to particularly pay a fitting tribute to Natalie for her colossal contribution to the life of sport for people with disabilities in South Africa and the world over,” he said.