Lottery blocks payment to lavishly funded music event
Lottery blocks payment to lavishly funded music event
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The Lottery has stopped a grant on the lavishly funded annual SATMA awards. Illustration: Lisa Nelson (SATMA symbol superimposed more than first illustration)
From 2019 to 2022 the South African Common Songs Awards obtained above R16-million with the Lottery.
Even so the Lottery has withheld payment of the 2023 grant subsequent an investigation.
The NLC has asked the Unique Investigating Device to probe alleged “double dipping” in yrs wherever funders besides the NLC also chipped in to aid fund the awards.
The scale of funding with the yearly two night party is astonishing.
The Mpumalanga government has funded the awards with more than R41-million soon after it “was awarded the correct” to host the SATMA awards for 3 many years, beginning from the 2020/21 economic year.
This has actually been Along with Lottery funding.
The National Lotteries Fee (NLC) is refusing to pay for a R1.2-million grant it at first accepted for an annual conventional audio awards ceremony. A similar celebration also acquired tens of many rand from the Mpumalanga provincial government.
From 2019 to 2022 the NLC awarded various grants totalling Pretty much R16.4-million towards the Mageza Heritage Foundation, the organisers of your yearly South African Conventional New music Awards (SATMA).
But it surely halted the payment of a 2023 grant after an inside investigation.
GroundUp has exposed massive corruption while in the NLC that happened right up until the previous board and administration was changed in 2022. The brand new NLC Management is seeking to thoroughly clean up the corruption on the previous.
The NLC’s investigation focused on equally the 2023 funding and earlier grants awarded to Mageza to phase the awards. The investigation also probed a payment of around R718,000, allegedly paid out from Lottery funds to G4 Brothers, of which Dumisani Gobe, the founding father of the SATMA awards, is a director.
Questioned if Mageza paid G4 a licencing or any other expenses to stage the awards, Goba claimed: “G4 was commissioned to perform a production of the occasion and obtained compensated for all those services, like to handle and make the main occasion, roadshows, and so on. I am the founder of the SATMA Awards; I am the just one who needs to be compensated for creating the idea determined by affordability and what Mageza decides.”
The NLC has handed a dossier of its investigation into the Exclusive Investigating Unit (SIU). It's got requested the SIU to investigate 4 diverse lottery-funded assignments that obtained grants involving October 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 where by funders aside from the NLC also chipped in to aid fund the awards.
This includes a grant of R400,000 with the Countrywide Heritage Council and just above R62,000 from “SABC Cellular” in 2020 - the exact same monetary yr through which the function gained Pretty much R2.six-million in lottery funding and R13.five-million within the Mpumalanga Office of Culture, Sporting activities and Recreation (MDCSR).
MDCSR funded the awards to the tune of over R41-million after it “was awarded the right” to host the SATMA awards for 3 several years, beginning within the 2020/21 monetary year.
The Mpumalanga governing administration’s funding for SATMA in excess of that period was considerably greater than grants to almost every other organisation for cultural projects and functions.
The MDSCR gave R3.five-million to SATMA in the 2019/20 money year ahead of ramping up its contribution following signing the agreement to host the awards above the following three a long time.
The entire finances submitted to your NLC when Mageza utilized to the disputed 2023 SATMA funding was R1.2-million. But of the, only R500,000 was allocated for the actual staging of the party. Other line objects inside the spending budget included R400,000 for “staff salaries and Advantages”, R200,000 for “stipends” and R100,000 for “journey.”
The awards had been held on fifteen December in the Durban Global cat888 Conference Centre. Mageza says it urgently desires the blocked grant to pay the celebration’s support vendors.
The SATMA awards, which had been initially held in 2006, are staged over two nights and it can be unclear how the tens of millions in grants from your NLC, MDCSR and various funders were invested.
Desmond Msomi, the chairman of Mageza, did not reply to specific concerns from GroundUp, including the expense of staging a SATMA awards ceremony.
Instead, he said: “Your thoughts are pointed out. Having said that, we have been recommended through the NLC this subject is getting investigated by the SIU. For this reason, we are not able to reply to your concerns right until we're recommended which the investigation continues to be concluded and the quantity owed has been paid to Mageza.”
Soon after Mpumalanga “gained the ideal” to host the awards for 3 years, the then provincial Culture, Activity and Recreation MEC, Lindiwe Ntshalintshali, explained it as “a boon” with the province.
“Web hosting the SATMA Awards has favourable financial spinoffs for that Mpumalanga coffers and What's more, it talks to your Division’s mandate of marketing social cohesion.”