Is the establishment of school for live events in South Africa in jeopardy? Reason: delay in paying by Department of Sport, Arts and Culture
By Edward Tsumele, CITYLIFE/ARTS Editor
When the Newtown, Johannesburg, based school that offers skills to the youth in technical production skills for live events’ building Sara House was handed over to management and the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture by the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA)last year, the mood was that of celebration.
After all DSAC had eventually come to the part by embracing SARA and its role in up-skilling the youth in technical production skills for live events after a battle that took 11 years to be resolved.
By engaging expertise from DBSA to renovate SARA House, which was in bad shape, spending R27 million on the building, it was thought that the government was not only committing to rehabilitating the building, but also to the establishment of a school of excellence that would see the youth of South African benefiting by getting superior education in live events. This, at least is what the management of SARA believed then, and still believes today. But with some hesitation.
This is because in the first instance, this belief and confidence on the part of SARA, was in fact reinforced by the fact that DSAC went further shortly after the building was handed over to DSAC, which had commissioned the renovations that the department had paid for, before it in return handed over the keys to the building to SARA management. The handover ceremony was hosted by the then Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture Nathi Mthethwa in 2022, attended by senior executives of DBSA, and senior officials of DSAC, led by then Director-General Vusimuzi Mkhize. The event was witnessed by the media. In the second instance, DCAS thereafter followed this up and signed a Memorandum of Understanding with SARA.
In the Memorandum of Understanding, a copy of which was seen by CITYLIFE/ARTS, DSAC made a commitment to fund the establishment of Backstage South Africa, a collaboration between probably the world’s leading live events and technical production school, the UK’s Back Stage Academy (whose name has since been changed to Academy of Live Events Technology) and SARA. This collaboration, once implemented would see such a school of excellence offering superior education to youth in South Africa, whose curriculum offering ranges from short courses of a few months up to long courses of many years up to a Master’s Degree level.
According to Freddie Nyathela, the President of SARA, with this level of commitment by DSAC, the establishment of Backstage South Africa, complete with a curriculum aligned to the South African Qualifications Authority requirements, should be completed within three years. But at the moment he doubts that, that deadline will be met because DSAC is delaying paying SARA the money promised to the institution by government.
“According to the MOU we signed with DSAC, the government has committed to funding the establishment of this school to the tune of R18 519 060. But so far, we have only received the first batch of R8 720 000 for the 2022/2023 financial year. We are still waiting for the second batch for the 2023/2024 financial year, which we have not received. This is despite the fact that we have an agreement that states exactly what the funding pays for and we have given the government the full report,” Nyathela told CITYLIFE/ARTS in an interview.
According to the MOU, Sara by now is supposed to have received an amount of R4 791 673.94 for the 2023/24 financial year. But according to the organization, this has not been received, and this delay is in fact in turn delaying the progress of establishing the academy. The funding for the final process of establishing the school for the 2024/25 financial year is R4 349 623.94, according to Nyathela
Nyathela further added that his Non-Profit Organization has sent several follow up emails to DSAC and Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture Zizi Kodwa, but so far no satisfactory response has been received, and this non-payment is affecting the process of establishing this school in South Africa.
This has left us with no choice but to lay a complaint with the Public protector. We did so on December 20, 2023,” Ntyathela said.
Asked what he thought was the reason for the delay in disbursing the rest of the funds, said he suspected ulterior motives on the part of those controlling the purse strings.
“This is abuse of power, a disregard of the Batho Pele principles and the Constitution, driven by jealousy at the expense of youth empowerment and transformation. This is the first of a kind project in Africa which is aimed at achieving a number of objectives, including facilitating access to mobility and progress within education and training and caree paths, enhancing the quality of education and training, accelerating the redress of past unfair discrimination in education, training and employment opportunities and contributing to the social and economic development of the nation at large.”
CITYLIFE/ARTS sought comment from Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture Zizi Kodwa through the media Litha Mpondwana, Media Liaison Officer in the Office of the Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture. At the time of publishing, we had received no response from his office of the minister. If and when we receive response, we will update the story.
In the meantime, opera singer Sibongile Khumalo last week went public about the delayed payment of funds for the projected funded by DSAC under the Presidential Economic Stimulus Fund programme for a project. Minister Kodwa responded by launching an investigation into the delay of paying the R100 000 owed to the artist for a project funded by the department.
This week, the artist however went publicly and said that she was eventually paid the outstanding amount.
