Lottery blocks payment to lavishly funded new music party
Lottery blocks payment to lavishly funded new music party
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The Lottery has stopped a grant into the lavishly funded annual SATMA awards. Illustration: Lisa Nelson (SATMA logo superimposed above first illustration)
From 2019 to 2022 the South African Regular Tunes Awards acquired above R16-million from your Lottery.
Even so the Lottery has withheld payment from the 2023 grant following an investigation.
The NLC has requested the Unique Investigating Device to probe alleged “double dipping” in years wherever funders apart from the NLC also chipped in that can help fund the awards.
The scale of funding to the yearly two night time event is astonishing.
The Mpumalanga federal government has funded the awards with about R41-million following it “was awarded the correct” to host the SATMA awards for three a long time, starting inside the 2020/21 fiscal yr.
This is Together with Lottery funding.
The National Lotteries Fee (NLC) is refusing to pay a R1.two-million grant it to begin with accredited for an annual common audio awards ceremony. Exactly the same party also acquired tens of millions of rand with the Mpumalanga provincial authorities.
From 2019 to 2022 the NLC awarded various grants totalling Nearly R16.4-million on the Mageza Heritage Basis, the organisers of your once-a-year South African Traditional Songs Awards (SATMA).
Nonetheless it halted the payment of a 2023 grant soon after an inside investigation.
GroundUp has exposed substantial corruption while in the NLC that came about right up until the earlier board and management was changed in 2022. The new NLC Management is aiming to clear up the corruption from the earlier.
The NLC’s investigation focused on both of those the 2023 funding and previously grants awarded to Mageza to phase the awards. The investigation also probed a payment of more than R718,000, allegedly paid out from Lottery funds to G4 Brothers, of which Dumisani Gobe, the founder of the SATMA awards, is usually a director.
Asked if Mageza paid out G4 a licencing or another charges to stage the awards, Goba claimed: “G4 was commissioned to do a production of the function and obtained compensated for people solutions, like to handle and generate the principle celebration, roadshows, and many others. I am the founder of the SATMA Awards; I'm the just one who have to be compensated for generating the notion according to affordability and what Mageza decides.”
The NLC has handed a file of its investigation on the Unique Investigating Device (SIU). It has requested the SIU to analyze four distinctive lottery-funded assignments that been given grants amongst Oct 2020 and May 2023, together with the payment to G4 Brothers.
The NLC has also asked the SIU to probe alleged “double dipping” in a long time wherever funders other than the NLC also chipped in to aid fund the awards.
This includes a grant of R400,000 through the Nationwide Heritage Council and just in excess of R62,000 from “SABC Cellular” in 2020 - precisely the same money year wherein the party gained Nearly R2.6-million in lottery funding and R13.five-million in the Mpumalanga Department of Culture, Sports and Recreation (MDCSR).
MDCSR funded the awards to the tune of over R41-million following it “was awarded the proper” to host the SATMA awards for three years, beginning during the 2020/21 economical calendar year.
The Mpumalanga govt’s funding for SATMA more than that period was significantly greater than grants to any other organisation for cultural assignments and situations.
The MDSCR gave R3.five-million to SATMA within the 2019/20 fiscal 12 months before ramping up its contribution right after signing the arrangement to host the awards in excess of another a few a long time.
The full budget submitted for the NLC when Mageza applied for your disputed 2023 SATMA funding was R1.2-million. But of the, only R500,000 was allocated for the actual staging of the event. Other line items within the price range provided R400,000 for “staff salaries and Gains”, R200,000 for “stipends” and R100,000 for “travel.”
The awards were held on fifteen December on the Durban International ruay Conference Centre. Mageza states it urgently requirements the blocked grant to pay for the occasion’s company companies.
The SATMA awards, which were 1st held in 2006, are staged around two evenings and it really is unclear how the tens of millions in grants from your NLC, MDCSR and other funders had been invested.
Desmond Msomi, the chairman of Mageza, did not respond to particular queries from GroundUp, including the cost of staging a SATMA awards ceremony.
As an alternative, he mentioned: “Your inquiries are famous. Even so, we are already suggested from the NLC this subject is currently being investigated through the SIU. Therefore, we cannot respond to your questions until eventually we're recommended which the investigation continues to be accomplished and the quantity owed has been paid to Mageza.”
Following Mpumalanga “gained the correct” to host the awards for 3 decades, the then provincial Culture, Sport and Recreation MEC, Lindiwe Ntshalintshali, described it as “a boon” for the province.
“Hosting the SATMA Awards has good economic spinoffs for the Mpumalanga coffers and In addition, it talks on the Division’s mandate of selling social cohesion.”