The Lottery has stopped a grant into the lavishly funded once-a-year SATMA awards. Illustration: Lisa Nelson (SATMA logo superimposed in excess of initial illustration)
From 2019 to 2022 the South African Traditional New music Awards been given in excess of R16-million through the Lottery.
Even so the Lottery has withheld payment from the 2023 grant next an investigation.
The NLC has requested the Distinctive Investigating Unit to probe alleged “double dipping” in yrs in which funders in addition to the NLC also chipped in to aid fund the awards.
The dimensions of funding for the annual two night function is astonishing.
The Mpumalanga government has funded the awards with more than R41-million soon after it “was awarded the appropriate” to host the SATMA awards for 3 yrs, starting while in the 2020/21 money 12 months.
This has become Besides Lottery funding.
The Nationwide Lotteries Fee (NLC) is refusing to pay for a R1.two-million grant it to begin with permitted for an annual traditional tunes awards ceremony. Precisely the same event also gained tens of countless 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 the 2023 grant immediately after an inside investigation.
GroundUp has uncovered substantial corruption while in the NLC that came about right up until the preceding 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 above R718,000, allegedly compensated from Lottery funds to G4 Brothers, of which Dumisani Gobe, the founding father of the SATMA awards, is a director.
Requested if Mageza paid out G4 a licencing or any other costs to phase the awards, Goba reported: “G4 was commissioned to accomplish a manufacture of the celebration and bought compensated for those 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 idea based on affordability and what Mageza decides.”
The NLC has handed a file of its investigation for the Special Investigating Device (SIU). It has requested the SIU to analyze four distinctive lottery-funded assignments that been given grants among Oct 2020 and May 2023, together with the payment to G4 Brothers.
The NLC has also questioned the SIU to probe alleged “double dipping” in a long time wherever funders in addition to the NLC also chipped in to assist fund the awards.
This includes a grant of R400,000 from your Nationwide Heritage Council and just in excess of R62,000 from “SABC Cellular” in 2020 - the exact same money 12 months through which the function obtained Nearly R2.six-million in lottery funding and R13.five-million from your Mpumalanga Department of Society, Sports activities and Recreation (MDCSR).
MDCSR funded the awards towards the tune of around R41-million immediately after it “was awarded the correct” to host the SATMA awards for 3 a long time, commencing within the 2020/21 money year.
The Mpumalanga federal government’s funding for SATMA around that period was considerably better than grants to another organisation for cultural projects and activities.
The MDSCR gave R3.5-million to SATMA inside the 2019/20 economic yr just before ramping up its contribution soon after signing the arrangement to host the awards more than the next a few yrs.
The whole price range submitted to the NLC when Mageza used for your disputed 2023 SATMA funding was R1.two-million. But of this, only R500,000 was allotted for the actual staging with the event. Other line goods inside the spending plan incorporated R400,000 for “staff salaries and Advantages”, R200,000 for “stipends” and R100,000 for “journey.”
The awards ended up held on fifteen December in the Durban Worldwide ltpbet Conference Centre. Mageza states it urgently requires the blocked grant to pay the celebration’s services suppliers.
The SATMA awards, which were being very first held in 2006, are staged about two evenings and it's unclear how the tens of hundreds of thousands in grants with the NLC, MDCSR and other funders had been invested.
Desmond Msomi, the chairman of Mageza, did not respond to specific questions from GroundUp, such as the price of staging a SATMA awards ceremony.
As a substitute, he explained: “Your inquiries are mentioned. Nevertheless, we happen to be encouraged with the NLC that this subject is getting investigated by the SIU. For this reason, we can not reply to your questions right up until we've been advised the investigation has actually been completed and the amount owed has become paid out to Mageza.”
Just after Mpumalanga “received the right” to host the awards for three many years, the then provincial Culture, Activity and Recreation MEC, Lindiwe Ntshalintshali, explained it as “a boon” for that province.
“Internet hosting the SATMA Awards has constructive economic spinoffs for the Mpumalanga coffers and Additionally, it talks to the Office’s mandate of advertising and marketing social cohesion.”