The Lottery has stopped a grant into the lavishly funded annual SATMA awards. Illustration: Lisa Nelson (SATMA emblem superimposed around original illustration)
From 2019 to 2022 the South African Standard Audio Awards acquired above R16-million with the Lottery.
But the Lottery has withheld payment from the 2023 grant following an investigation.
The NLC has questioned the Special Investigating Device to probe alleged “double dipping” in decades where funders besides the NLC also chipped in that can help fund the awards.
The dimensions of funding for that annual two night celebration is astonishing.
The Mpumalanga govt has funded the awards with above R41-million right after it “was awarded the ideal” to host the SATMA awards for three several years, commencing inside the 2020/21 money calendar year.
This has been Besides Lottery funding.
The National Lotteries Commission (NLC) is refusing to pay for a R1.two-million grant it to begin with permitted for an yearly classic audio awards ceremony. The identical occasion also received tens of millions of rand within the Mpumalanga provincial federal government.
From 2019 to 2022 the NLC awarded numerous grants totalling Nearly R16.4-million into the Mageza Heritage Foundation, the organisers of your annual South African Traditional Tunes Awards (SATMA).
Nonetheless it halted the payment of the 2023 grant right after an interior investigation.
GroundUp has uncovered massive corruption inside the NLC that came about right until the previous board and administration was changed in 2022. The brand new NLC leadership is seeking to clean up the corruption in the previous.
The NLC’s investigation focused on each 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 often a director.
Requested if Mageza compensated G4 a licencing or another service fees to stage the awards, Goba said: “G4 was commissioned to carry out a production of the celebration and got paid out for people companies, like to deal with and generate the most crucial event, roadshows, and so forth. I am the founding father of the SATMA Awards; I'm the a person who should be compensated for producing the principle dependant on affordability and what Mageza decides.”
The NLC has handed a file of its investigation on the Exclusive Investigating Unit (SIU). It has questioned the SIU to research four different lottery-funded jobs that acquired grants among October 2020 and should 2023, together with the payment to G4 Brothers.
The NLC has also asked the SIU to probe alleged “double dipping” in years in which funders in addition to the NLC also chipped in to aid fund the awards.
This features a grant of R400,000 from your Nationwide Heritage Council and just over R62,000 from “SABC Mobile” in 2020 - exactly the same money calendar year during which the function gained almost R2.6-million in lottery funding and R13.five-million with the Mpumalanga Section of Lifestyle, Athletics and Recreation (MDCSR).
MDCSR funded the awards on the tune of above R41-million right after it “was awarded the proper” to host the SATMA awards for 3 a long time, beginning from the 2020/21 economic year.
The Mpumalanga authorities’s funding for SATMA about that time period was significantly greater than grants to some other organisation for cultural jobs and functions.
The MDSCR gave R3.five-million to SATMA during the 2019/20 economic yr in advance of ramping up its contribution after signing the agreement to host the awards more than the following three a long time.
The full spending plan submitted into 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 celebration. Other line objects inside the funds provided R400,000 for “personnel salaries and Gains”, R200,000 for “stipends” and R100,000 for “journey.”
The awards were being held on 15 December at the Durban Global ruay Conference Centre. Mageza says it urgently needs the blocked grant to pay the event’s provider vendors.
The SATMA awards, which ended up initial held in 2006, are staged about two evenings and it really is unclear how the tens of thousands and thousands in grants within the NLC, MDCSR and various funders were invested.
Desmond Msomi, the chairman of Mageza, did not respond to certain inquiries from GroundUp, including the price of staging a SATMA awards ceremony.
As a substitute, he claimed: “Your thoughts are observed. On the other hand, we are suggested from the NLC this issue is becoming investigated via the SIU. For this reason, we can not reply to your concerns right until we are recommended which the investigation is concluded and the quantity owed has been paid out to Mageza.”
Immediately after Mpumalanga “won the best” to host the awards for 3 years, the then provincial Culture, Sport and Recreation MEC, Lindiwe Ntshalintshali, explained it as “a boon” for the province.
“Hosting the SATMA Awards has good economic spinoffs for the Mpumalanga coffers and Furthermore, it talks on the Division’s mandate of advertising and marketing social cohesion.”