Relief for artists as National Arts Council agrees to release staggered call results after confrontation with artists: But could latest confrontation have been avoided?

BY Edward Tsumele, CITYLIFE/ARTS Editor

On Friday, October 17, 2025, I went to a popular jazz music venue in Newtown. Simply passing through to say hi to someone there. But then I immediately saw that the people who were gathered there were artists and not the normal patrons that often go there to listen to jazz or have one or two drinks. These artists were in a heated discussion. That I could tell that this was yet another meeting to resolve issues that have something to do with the fractured funding system we have in this country. But more importantly, it is not necessarily the system that is per se the problem, but the attitude of those in charge of funding, the administrators who clearly should not be in the positions of power over funding administration that they are in.

These artists as I soon realised were simply at the venue to strategise after which they had to go back to sleep at the door steps of the NAC offices nearby where since Friday they had camped. Among these artists were well known names in the arts and entertainment sector, Icons even. Soprano Sibongile Mngoma, Bubble gum music icon Mercy Phakela, actor Thami Ka Mbongo… you name them. It meant that these artists were literally risking their lives by sleeping in the streets. This is a risk they had to take in order to be heard. In order to force the clueless, and even uncaring administrators to do what they are employed to do, which they had failed to do.

The NAC had yet again failed the sector, even though four weeks prior they had promised artists who had occupied the same offices for the same reason to release the results of the latest call for funding. A call that in any case had been delayed anyway.

Now here is the thing: The NAC had decided to renege on the earlier promise they had made to the artists –that is to release the results of the latest call on a particular day. It meant for whatever reason they had failed to meet their own deadline, ironically privilege they never extend to artists when they apply for funding whenever there is a call no matter the reason for missing the deadline to apply.

Here is another thing: Over the weekend a meeting was convened with the artists and a compromise was reached between the NAC and the aggrieved artists. Basically the NAC is going to release the results in a staggered fashion, starting with the visual art results on Monday, 20 October, 2025, Craft, Literature, Dance & Theatre on Thursday, 23 October 2025, Music & Multidiscipline on Friday, 31 October 2025. 

Of course this is good news and this demonstrates a level of care for a sector which relies on this funding for their livelihood. But then again, did it have to have gone this far in the first place.

Though it is not clear whether the NAC right now has a legitimately appointed panel, but whatever structure that is there is there to adjudicate and somehow it appears like they were overwhelmed with work and therefore could not adjudicate all applications for the multiple sectors in time, which understandably can happen.

Here is the issue. The NAC management and the board should have foreseen this coming up weeks in advance and therefore should have put in place factors to mitigate the effect of the collision course with the artists. They should for example, have invited the same artists’ organisation’s leaders to a table over coffee and explained their dilemma. Artists are not unreasonable when they are respected and there is transparency in the whole process.

The same decision that the NAC managed to hammer out with the aggrieved artists over the weekend, could have been reached weeks ago, and therefore the latest collision with the artists could have been avoided. There therefore would not have been a need for artists to sleep in the streets and risk their lives for something that could have been easily avoided if people put their heads together and look for a solution instead of a unilateral decision made by officials of the NAC in a context where there is a trust deficit between the NAC and the artists.

One sometimes wonders about the quality of people that are in boards of the state agencies of the arts when they fail to solve a simple matter such as this. Then the question is, why are they there in the first place. Is it about the fees or the prestige of being on a board? Or, is it about serving the sector as all of them am sure would answer positively to that question if asked.