The Lottery has stopped a grant for the lavishly funded yearly SATMA awards. Illustration: Lisa Nelson (SATMA brand superimposed around original illustration)

From 2019 to 2022 the South African Conventional Music Awards been given about R16-million through the Lottery.
Even so the Lottery has withheld payment from the 2023 grant next an investigation.
The NLC has requested the Distinctive Investigating Unit to probe alleged “double dipping” in yrs exactly where funders besides the NLC also chipped in to help fund the awards.
The scale of funding to the yearly two night time party is astonishing.
The Mpumalanga authorities has funded the awards with above R41-million immediately after it “was awarded the right” to host the SATMA awards for 3 decades, commencing from the 2020/21 money yr.
This is Besides Lottery funding.
The Nationwide Lotteries Fee (NLC) is refusing to pay a R1.two-million grant it originally accepted for an once-a-year standard music awards ceremony. A similar occasion also been given tens of numerous rand from the Mpumalanga provincial federal government.

From 2019 to 2022 the NLC awarded quite a few grants totalling Virtually R16.4-million on the Mageza Heritage Basis, the organisers of your once-a-year South African Traditional Music Awards (SATMA).

Nevertheless it halted the payment of a 2023 grant right after an inner investigation.

GroundUp has exposed massive corruption in the NLC that took place until the former board and administration was replaced in 2022. The brand new NLC leadership is aiming to clear up the corruption of the previous.

The NLC’s investigation focused on equally the 2023 funding and earlier grants awarded to Mageza to stage the awards. The investigation also probed a payment of around R718,000, allegedly paid from Lottery cash to G4 Brothers, of which Dumisani Gobe, the founder of the SATMA awards, can be a director.

Questioned if Mageza paid G4 a licencing or some other expenses to phase the awards, Goba said: “G4 was commissioned to perform a manufacture of the celebration and bought compensated for those solutions, like to manage and create the primary occasion, roadshows, and so on. I'm the founder of the SATMA Awards; I am the one who must be compensated for building the strategy depending on affordability and what Mageza decides.”

The NLC has handed a file of its investigation on the Unique Investigating Device (SIU). It has requested the SIU to analyze four unique lottery-funded projects that gained grants between October 2020 and should 2023, as well as the payment to G4 Brothers.

The NLC has also asked the SIU to probe alleged “double dipping” in several years where by funders apart from the NLC also chipped in to aid fund the awards.

This includes a grant of R400,000 through the Nationwide Heritage Council and just in excess of R62,000 from “SABC Cellular” in 2020 - precisely the same fiscal yr during which the occasion received almost R2.six-million in lottery funding and R13.5-million within the Mpumalanga Section of Culture, Sporting activities and Recreation (MDCSR).

MDCSR funded the awards on the tune of over R41-million immediately after it “was awarded the correct” to host the SATMA awards for 3 many years, starting in the 2020/21 fiscal 12 months.

The Mpumalanga government’s funding for SATMA above that period of time was significantly bigger than grants to every other organisation for cultural tasks and functions.

The MDSCR gave R3.5-million to SATMA while in the 2019/20 economic yr just before ramping up its contribution right after signing the agreement to host the awards around another 3 many years.

The total finances submitted on the NLC when Mageza applied for that disputed 2023 SATMA funding was R1.2-million. But of this, only R500,000 was allotted for the actual staging with the occasion. Other line goods within the spending plan integrated R400,000 for “staff salaries and Gains”, R200,000 for “stipends” and R100,000 for “travel.”

The awards have been held on fifteen December for the Durban Intercontinental ltpbet Conference Centre. Mageza says it urgently demands the blocked grant to pay for the occasion’s company providers.

The SATMA awards, which have been to start with held in 2006, are staged above two nights and it can be unclear how the tens of millions in grants in the NLC, MDCSR together with other funders ended up expended.

Desmond Msomi, the chairman of Mageza, didn't respond to certain queries from GroundUp, including the expense of staging a SATMA awards ceremony.

In its place, he reported: “Your issues are famous. Nonetheless, we happen to be encouraged because of the NLC that this subject is getting investigated by the SIU. That's why, we can't respond to your issues until finally we have been encouraged which the investigation is concluded and the quantity owed has been paid to Mageza.”

Following Mpumalanga “won the correct” to host the awards for three a long time, the then provincial Tradition, Sport 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 it also talks into the Section’s mandate of marketing social cohesion.”