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Hosting the FIFA 2010 Soccer World Cup: The South African ServiceDelivery Dilemma – Dr. Hilton Fisher, South AfricaPresented at the 2008 CAPAM Biennial Conference1.INTRODUCTIONThe paper aims to deal with the dilemma that South Africa faces in settingpriorities in relation to social spending as opposed to ‘chance’ (opportunistic)spending. The paper will consider how the South African government can justifythe opportunity cost of the huge capital expenditure related to the hosting of theFIFA soccer world cup in 2010. Put differently, how does government justifybuilding a soccer stadium whilst many poor South Africans do not have homes tolive in?The paper does not take a negative view of South Africa hosting the soccer worldcup in 2010, instead it presents the argument that many ordinary South Africansdo not understand the value of and opportunities that the additional economicactivity associated with hosting the 2010 soccer world cup can bring to their lives.It is this positive approach that needs to be communicated to ordinary citizens.South Africa has been a democratic country since 1994. There is no doubt thatSouth Africa is still dealing with the legacy of separate development (apartheid).In an effort to deal with the residual effects of the past policy of separatedevelopment, South Africa has to expend more resources on those people andareas that were previously underdeveloped. Herein lays the dilemma for theSouth African government! It is in this fore-going context that South Africa also has to expend furtherresources on the development of information and communication technologies(ICTs) for economic development and growth. Once the capacity for ICT has1

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been developed, there needs to be a concerted effort to ensuring access so as toestablish a critical mass of users. Ordinary South Africans need to be convincedthat ICTs could be beneficial to them.An...