The Lottery has stopped a grant into the lavishly funded annual SATMA awards. Illustration: Lisa Nelson (SATMA brand superimposed over authentic illustration)
From 2019 to 2022 the South African Classic Audio Awards acquired above R16-million from your Lottery.
Even so the Lottery has withheld payment in the 2023 grant following an investigation.
The NLC has questioned the Unique Investigating Device to probe alleged “double dipping” in many years where funders aside from the NLC also chipped in to help fund the awards.
The size of funding for that once-a-year two evening celebration is astonishing.
The Mpumalanga authorities has funded the awards with more than R41-million immediately after it “was awarded the proper” to host the SATMA awards for three a long time, starting while in the 2020/21 money 12 months.
This has actually been In combination with Lottery funding.
The Countrywide Lotteries Fee (NLC) is refusing to pay a R1.two-million grant it in the beginning approved for an yearly regular new music awards ceremony. The exact same function also obtained tens of countless rand in the Mpumalanga provincial government.
From 2019 to 2022 the NLC awarded many grants totalling almost R16.4-million to your Mageza Heritage Basis, the organisers in the once-a-year South African Standard New music Awards (SATMA).
But it really halted the payment of the 2023 grant after an interior investigation.
GroundUp has exposed substantial corruption during the NLC that occurred until the earlier board and management was replaced in 2022. The new NLC leadership is aiming to thoroughly clean up the corruption of your earlier.
The NLC’s investigation centered on both the 2023 funding and before grants awarded to Mageza to phase the awards. The investigation also probed a payment of around R718,000, allegedly paid out from Lottery money to G4 Brothers, of which Dumisani Gobe, the founding father of the SATMA awards, can be a director.
Asked if Mageza paid out G4 a licencing or another fees to phase the awards, Goba stated: “G4 was commissioned to do a manufacture of the event and received paid out for those solutions, like to deal with and develop the primary celebration, roadshows, etc. I am the founding father of the SATMA Awards; I am the a person who should be compensated for producing the notion depending on affordability and what Mageza decides.”
The NLC has handed a dossier of its investigation to the Particular Investigating Unit (SIU). It's got asked the SIU to analyze four distinctive lottery-funded assignments that obtained grants between Oct 2020 and should 2023, together with the payment to G4 Brothers.
The NLC has also requested the SIU to probe alleged “double dipping” in many years the place funders aside from the NLC also chipped in to help you fund the awards.
This includes a grant of R400,000 from the Nationwide Heritage Council and just above R62,000 from “SABC Cell” in 2020 - the exact same fiscal 12 months by which the function gained almost R2.six-million in lottery funding and R13.five-million within the Mpumalanga Section of Tradition, Sports and Recreation (MDCSR).
MDCSR funded the awards to the tune of about R41-million immediately after it “was awarded the best” to host the SATMA awards for three yrs, beginning from the 2020/21 economic yr.
The Mpumalanga authorities’s funding for SATMA above that period was significantly larger than grants to any other organisation for cultural jobs and activities.
The MDSCR gave R3.5-million to SATMA during the 2019/20 money 12 months in advance of ramping up its contribution soon after signing the settlement to host the awards over the next a few years.
The total budget submitted to the NLC when Mageza used with the disputed 2023 SATMA funding was R1.2-million. But of the, only R500,000 was allocated for the actual staging of your party. Other line products in the spending plan involved R400,000 for “personnel salaries and Advantages”, R200,000 for “stipends” and R100,000 for “vacation.”
The awards had been held on fifteen December in the Durban Intercontinental ruay Convention Centre. Mageza suggests it urgently wants the blocked grant to pay for the event’s assistance providers.
The SATMA awards, which have been first held in 2006, are staged above two nights and it is actually unclear how the tens of millions in grants from your NLC, MDCSR and various funders were spent.
Desmond Msomi, the chairman of Mageza, didn't reply to unique thoughts from GroundUp, such as the price of staging a SATMA awards ceremony.
Alternatively, he explained: “Your inquiries are mentioned. Nevertheless, we have been encouraged with the NLC this subject is becoming investigated via the SIU. That's why, we can't respond to your thoughts right up until we've been encouraged that the investigation has become done and the quantity owed continues to be paid to Mageza.”
Soon after Mpumalanga “gained the right” to host the awards for three 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.”