Parliament refuses to prioritise meeting on artist relief funds

8 March 2021

The Democratic Alliance (DA) laments the fact that the Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Sports, Arts and Culture, Beauty Dlulane, has refused to prioritise a meeting with Minister Nathi Mthethwa, the National Arts Council (NAC) and relevant role players in the sector to discuss the debacle surrounding the Presidential Economic Stimulus Programme (PESP) relief funding.

The DA wrote to the Chairperson to request an urgent meeting for the NAC and the Minister to account for what amounts to contract break in administering the R300 million received from PESP, and was advised that “The committee, at this point has a full programme as adopted at the beginning of the term. The matter of the briefing by the NAC, I commit it will be prioritised in the 2nd term”.

Should the lot of an entire industry not be of the utmost concern? The situation at hand must be investigated immediately and cannot wait until the second term to come before the committee.

But instead hoping that this travesty would fade into the background as an inevitable new dilemma unfolds from the ranks of the ANC government, seems to be how this situation, as many others, is being dealt with.

Those that make their living in the arts and culture sector of South Africa have been poorly supported from the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. They have had to scrape by and have struggled to survive. Many are drowning in debt and have already lost their homes as well as their jobs. They don’t have food to eat and cannot support their families. And now the NAC is trying to break contracts for projects that have already commenced. Yet their struggles do not seem important enough to convene an urgent meeting to hold those perpetuating the misery to account. This is simply sickening.

Each and every contract that the NAC has signed with artists and companies need to be investigated and scrutinized. The NAC cannot be allowed to break legally binding contracts and get away with it. Those in the arts and culture sectors should not have to continue to suffer at the hands of a seemingly corrupt and callous Council.

Artists have, and will continue to speak out against the Minister and the NAC on every platform available to them should this situation persist. And the DA will stand with them.

Issued by Veronica van Dyk,DA Deputy Shadow Minister for Sports, Arts and Culture, 8 March 2021