Mystery beneficiary vanishes with millions of Rands from Department of Sport, Arts and Culture for a phantom broadcast project
The department says the case is being handled by law enforcement agencies.
By Edward Tsumele, CITYLIFE/ARTS Editor
A mystery beneficiary last year, 2023, vanished with R7.5 million from the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture for a broadcast project understood to be a podcast that never happened. The funds were applied under a funding scheme meant for funding art practitioners and projects in the creative and cultural sector.
This scandal, which was kept under wraps, was however unveiled in a brief to the Portfolio Committee on Sports, Arts and Culture by the Auditor-General in Parliament on October 3, 2023. However since that briefing, it is known what has happened to the issue and whether government has managed to recover money from the beneficiary. A criminal case is also said to have been opened against the individual and the Department at the time sad it was pursuing both civil action taking disciplinary action against an official of the department said to be implicated by irregularities in the payments made to the mysterious beneficiary.
CITYLIFE/ARTS is in possession of the minutes of the briefing in which the Department admits to the theft of the funds, in which an unnamed senior department official is also implicated. In the minutes of the briefing, DSAC says that it is pursuing both civil and criminals channels in regards to the stolen money following a forensic investigation that DSAC commissioned and whose results have not been publicly released.
Contacted for comment this week by CITYLIFE/ARTS, DSAC through Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture Zizi Kodwa’s spokesperson Litha Mpondwana, confirmed the issue but declined to comment, citing the fact that the issue was being handled by law enforcement agencies.
“The matter referred to in your query is currently before law enforcement, and therefore the Department cannot comment at this stage,” Mpondwana said in response to the below questions that CITYLIFE/ARTS sent to him:
.What is the outcome of the forensic investigation into the matter as instituted by DSAC?
.Who is the beneficiary that diverted the funds into other use other than what the money was intended for?
.How far is the process of recovering the money from the beneficiary by DSAC/and or from the DSAC official implicated in the matter?
What is the outcome of the disciplinary process against the DSAC official?
What is the name of the implicated DSAC official?
The criminal case that was opened, can you perhaps share the outcome and the case number.
However in the minutes of the briefing to Parliament, the Auditor General raises a lot of questions with regards to this particular issue and that of another case in which the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) seems to have been flouted. In fact the Auditor General has gone as far as labeling what has happened in this case as Material irregularities (MI), a serious form of flouting the PFMA, which calls for criminal prosecution of those involved.