The Lottery has stopped a grant for the lavishly funded once-a-year SATMA awards. Illustration: Lisa Nelson (SATMA symbol superimposed above first illustration)
From 2019 to 2022 the South African Common New music Awards gained in excess of R16-million from your Lottery.
Nevertheless the Lottery has withheld payment from the 2023 grant next an investigation.
The NLC has asked the Distinctive Investigating Unit to probe alleged “double dipping” in decades 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 governing administration 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 fiscal yr.
This has become Besides Lottery funding.
The Nationwide Lotteries Commission (NLC) is refusing to pay for a R1.2-million grant it in the beginning permitted for an annual common audio awards ceremony. The identical 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 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 seeking to clean up up the corruption in the earlier.
The NLC’s investigation centered on the two the 2023 funding and earlier grants awarded to Mageza to stage the awards. The investigation also probed a payment of more than R718,000, allegedly compensated from Lottery money to G4 Brothers, of which Dumisani Gobe, the founding father of the SATMA awards, is actually a director.
Questioned if Mageza paid G4 a licencing or another expenses to stage the awards, Goba stated: “G4 was commissioned to carry out a manufacture of the function and received compensated for all those solutions, like to deal with and create the leading celebration, roadshows, and so forth. I am the founder of the SATMA Awards; I am the a person who should be compensated for generating the principle determined by affordability and what Mageza decides.”
The NLC has handed a dossier of its investigation to the Distinctive Investigating Unit (SIU). It's got requested the SIU to investigate 4 distinct lottery-funded tasks that been given grants amongst Oct 2020 and will 2023, as well as the payment to G4 Brothers.
The NLC has also requested the SIU to probe alleged “double dipping” in many years where by funders aside from the NLC also chipped in to help fund the awards.
This includes a grant of R400,000 from your Nationwide Heritage Council and just in excess of R62,000 from “SABC Cell” in 2020 - exactly the same fiscal 12 months by which the occasion obtained Virtually R2.6-million in lottery funding and R13.5-million with the Mpumalanga Section of Tradition, Sports activities and Recreation (MDCSR).
MDCSR funded the awards to the tune of around R41-million just after it “was awarded the ideal” to host the SATMA awards for 3 a long time, beginning while in the 2020/21 monetary 12 months.
The Mpumalanga authorities’s funding for SATMA around that period was considerably better than grants to any other organisation for cultural assignments and gatherings.
The MDSCR gave R3.five-million to SATMA during the 2019/20 money yr ahead of ramping up its contribution after signing the settlement to host the awards around another a few yrs.
The overall finances submitted to your NLC when Mageza utilized for that disputed 2023 SATMA funding was R1.two-million. But of this, only R500,000 was allocated for the particular staging with the celebration. Other line products inside the price range incorporated R400,000 for “staff salaries and Added benefits”, R200,000 for “stipends” and R100,000 for “travel.”
The awards were held on 15 December in the Durban Global ตรวจ Convention Centre. Mageza claims it urgently demands the blocked grant to pay the function’s service suppliers.
The SATMA awards, which were 1st held in 2006, are staged more than two nights and it is unclear how the tens of hundreds of thousands in grants within the NLC, MDCSR along with other funders have been expended.
Desmond Msomi, the chairman of Mageza, didn't respond to distinct issues from GroundUp, such as the price of staging a SATMA awards ceremony.
As a substitute, he claimed: “Your issues are observed. On the other hand, we are recommended through the NLC this subject is currently being investigated with the SIU. Consequently, we cannot respond to your thoughts right up until we are suggested the investigation has been finished and the amount owed has long been paid to Mageza.”
Immediately after Mpumalanga “received the right” to host the awards for three many years, the then provincial Tradition, Activity and Recreation MEC, Lindiwe Ntshalintshali, explained it as “a boon” for that province.
“Internet hosting the SATMA Awards has favourable financial spinoffs to the Mpumalanga coffers and What's more, it talks to your Section’s mandate of selling social cohesion.”