The Lottery has stopped a grant into the lavishly funded yearly SATMA awards. Illustration: Lisa Nelson (SATMA emblem superimposed over authentic illustration)

From 2019 to 2022 the South African Traditional New music Awards gained above R16-million from the Lottery.
Although the Lottery has withheld payment from the 2023 grant pursuing an investigation.
The NLC has asked the Unique Investigating Unit to probe alleged “double dipping” in decades exactly where funders besides the NLC also chipped in to help fund the awards.
The scale of funding for the annual two night occasion is astonishing.
The Mpumalanga government has funded the awards with above R41-million immediately after it “was awarded the ideal” to host the SATMA awards for three decades, starting within the 2020/21 financial 12 months.
This has been Besides Lottery funding.
The Countrywide Lotteries Commission (NLC) is refusing to pay a R1.two-million grant it originally approved for an annual traditional songs awards ceremony. The same event also been given tens of many rand from the Mpumalanga provincial government.

From 2019 to 2022 the NLC awarded several grants totalling almost R16.four-million on the Mageza Heritage Foundation, the organisers of the yearly South African Standard Songs Awards (SATMA).

Nonetheless it halted the payment of a 2023 grant following an interior investigation.

GroundUp has exposed massive corruption while in the NLC that befell right up until the former board and administration was replaced in 2022. The new NLC leadership is aiming to cleanse up the corruption of the previous.

The NLC’s investigation focused on both equally the 2023 funding and before grants awarded to Mageza to phase the awards. The investigation also probed a payment of around R718,000, allegedly compensated from Lottery cash to G4 Brothers, of which Dumisani Gobe, the founding father of the SATMA awards, is usually a director.

Requested if Mageza compensated G4 a licencing or almost every other charges to phase the awards, Goba stated: “G4 was commissioned to carry out a manufacture of the party and received paid out for all those products and services, like to control and produce the key celebration, roadshows, etcetera. I'm the founding father of the SATMA Awards; I'm the 1 who have to be compensated for developing the thought depending on affordability and what Mageza decides.”

The NLC has handed a dossier of its investigation to the Special Investigating Device (SIU). It's asked the SIU to research four distinct lottery-funded tasks that received grants involving October 2020 and could 2023, and also the payment to G4 Brothers.

The NLC has also requested the SIU to probe alleged “double dipping” in years the place funders apart from the NLC also chipped in that can help fund the awards.

This includes a grant of R400,000 in the Nationwide Heritage Council and just around R62,000 from “SABC Cell” in 2020 - precisely the same financial 12 months in which the event obtained Virtually R2.6-million in lottery funding and R13.5-million through the Mpumalanga Section of Lifestyle, Sports activities and Recreation (MDCSR).

MDCSR funded the awards to your tune of in excess of R41-million immediately after it “was awarded the appropriate” to host the SATMA awards for three many years, commencing from the 2020/21 economic calendar year.

The Mpumalanga govt’s funding for SATMA over that period of time was significantly larger than grants to another organisation for cultural tasks and functions.

The MDSCR gave R3.5-million to SATMA in the 2019/20 money 12 months prior to ramping up its contribution soon after signing the arrangement to host the awards above the following three many years.

The entire price range submitted for the NLC when Mageza applied for the disputed 2023 SATMA funding was R1.two-million. But of the, only R500,000 was allocated for the actual staging of the party. Other line merchandise while in the price range included R400,000 for “staff salaries and Rewards”, R200,000 for “stipends” and R100,000 for “vacation.”

The awards had been held on fifteen December on the Durban Intercontinental ตรวจ Conference Centre. Mageza states it urgently requirements the blocked grant to pay for the event’s assistance providers.

The SATMA awards, which ended up initial held in 2006, are staged around two nights and it is actually unclear how the tens of hundreds of thousands in grants with the NLC, MDCSR along with other funders ended up used.

Desmond Msomi, the chairman of Mageza, didn't reply to specific concerns from GroundUp, including the cost of staging a SATMA awards ceremony.

As an alternative, he explained: “Your inquiries are famous. Even so, we are recommended through the NLC this subject is currently being investigated through the SIU. Hence, we are unable to respond to your thoughts until eventually we are recommended which the investigation has become completed and the amount owed has become compensated to Mageza.”

Right after Mpumalanga “gained the ideal” to host the awards for 3 many years, the then provincial Tradition, 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 Additionally, it talks for the Department’s mandate of advertising social cohesion.”