Lottery blocks payment to lavishly funded tunes celebration
Lottery blocks payment to lavishly funded tunes celebration
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The Lottery has stopped a grant for the lavishly funded once-a-year SATMA awards. Illustration: Lisa Nelson (SATMA emblem superimposed over first illustration)
From 2019 to 2022 the South African Traditional Songs Awards acquired in excess of R16-million within the Lottery.
Nevertheless the Lottery has withheld payment on the 2023 grant adhering to an investigation.
The NLC has asked the Unique Investigating Device to probe alleged “double dipping” in several years exactly where funders apart from the NLC also chipped in to aid fund the awards.
The dimensions of funding for that annual two evening party is astonishing.
The Mpumalanga govt has funded the awards with in excess of R41-million right after it “was awarded the appropriate” to host the SATMA awards for 3 years, starting from the 2020/21 economic yr.
This has actually been As well as Lottery funding.
The Nationwide Lotteries Commission (NLC) is refusing to pay a R1.two-million grant it in the beginning permitted for an once-a-year common tunes awards ceremony. Exactly the same party also gained tens of a lot of rand through the Mpumalanga provincial govt.
From 2019 to 2022 the NLC awarded a number of grants totalling almost R16.four-million on the Mageza Heritage Foundation, the organisers of your annual South African Conventional Music Awards (SATMA).
However it halted the payment of the 2023 grant right after an interior investigation.
GroundUp has exposed substantial corruption during the NLC that happened right up until the past board and administration was changed in 2022. The brand new NLC Management is seeking to clean up the corruption with the earlier.
The NLC’s investigation centered on both equally the 2023 funding and earlier grants awarded to Mageza to phase the awards. The investigation also probed a payment of in excess of R718,000, allegedly compensated from Lottery cash to G4 Brothers, of which Dumisani Gobe, the founder of the SATMA awards, is actually a director.
Asked if Mageza paid out G4 a licencing or some other charges to phase the awards, Goba claimed: “G4 was commissioned to try and do a production of the occasion and bought paid for people products and services, like to handle and produce the leading occasion, roadshows, and many others. I'm the founder of the SATMA Awards; I'm the 1 who need to be compensated for producing the principle based upon affordability and what Mageza decides.”
The NLC has handed a dossier of its investigation for the Unique Investigating Device (SIU). It's got requested the SIU to investigate 4 distinctive lottery-funded initiatives that acquired grants among Oct 2020 and should 2023, and also the payment to G4 Brothers.
The NLC has also requested the SIU to probe alleged “double dipping” in years wherever funders apart from the NLC also chipped in to assist fund the awards.
This features a grant of R400,000 through the National Heritage Council and just about R62,000 from “SABC Cell” in 2020 - precisely the same financial 12 months during which the celebration been given almost R2.six-million in lottery funding and R13.five-million from your Mpumalanga Office of Lifestyle, Sporting activities and Recreation (MDCSR).
MDCSR funded the awards into the tune of around R41-million right after it “was awarded the correct” to host the SATMA awards for three several years, beginning inside the 2020/21 fiscal yr.
The Mpumalanga authorities’s funding for SATMA over that interval was considerably larger than grants to another organisation for cultural projects and gatherings.
The MDSCR gave R3.five-million to SATMA inside the 2019/20 financial year in advance of ramping up its contribution following signing the settlement to host the awards over another three years.
The entire funds submitted into the NLC when Mageza used with the disputed 2023 SATMA funding was R1.two-million. But of this, only R500,000 was allocated for the particular staging of your event. Other line merchandise during the budget included R400,000 for “staff salaries and Added benefits”, R200,000 for “stipends” and R100,000 for “journey.”
The awards were held on 15 December at the Durban Global hihuay Conference Centre. Mageza states it urgently needs the blocked grant to pay the event’s company companies.
The SATMA awards, which were being 1st held in 2006, are staged more than two nights and it is actually unclear how the tens of thousands and thousands in grants from the NLC, MDCSR together with other funders were invested.
Desmond Msomi, the chairman of Mageza, did not respond to certain issues from GroundUp, such as the price of staging a SATMA awards ceremony.
In its place, he said: “Your questions are noted. Nevertheless, we happen to be advised by the NLC that this make a difference is becoming investigated by the SIU. Hence, we are unable to respond to your thoughts until eventually we're recommended that the investigation has actually been finished and the amount owed has been paid out to Mageza.”
Just after Mpumalanga “won the correct” to host the awards for three decades, the then provincial Culture, Sport and Recreation MEC, Lindiwe Ntshalintshali, explained it as “a boon” for the province.
“Hosting the SATMA Awards has optimistic economic spinoffs for the Mpumalanga coffers and Furthermore, it talks to your Section’s mandate of selling social cohesion.”