The Lottery has stopped a grant on the lavishly funded yearly SATMA awards. Illustration: Lisa Nelson (SATMA emblem superimposed about first illustration)

From 2019 to 2022 the South African Classic Audio Awards received around R16-million through the Lottery.
Although the Lottery has withheld payment on the 2023 grant following 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 evening celebration is astonishing.
The Mpumalanga government has funded the awards with more than R41-million soon after it “was awarded the appropriate” to host the SATMA awards for 3 a long time, beginning within the 2020/21 monetary year.
This has long been in addition to Lottery funding.
The Countrywide Lotteries Commission (NLC) is refusing to pay for a R1.2-million grant it in the beginning accredited for an annual regular songs awards ceremony. The same celebration also received tens of an incredible number of rand from the Mpumalanga provincial federal government.

From 2019 to 2022 the NLC awarded quite a few grants totalling Virtually R16.four-million into the Mageza Heritage Foundation, the organisers of the once-a-year South African Regular Music Awards (SATMA).

But it surely halted the payment of the 2023 grant soon after an internal investigation.

GroundUp has exposed substantial corruption during the NLC that happened until eventually the prior board and administration was changed in 2022. The new NLC Management is seeking to clean up the corruption of the past.

The NLC’s investigation centered on each the 2023 funding and before grants awarded to Mageza to phase the awards. The investigation also probed a payment of about R718,000, allegedly paid out from Lottery funds to G4 Brothers, of which Dumisani Gobe, the founding father of the SATMA awards, is a director.

Questioned if Mageza paid G4 a licencing or another costs to phase the awards, Goba reported: “G4 was commissioned to carry out a manufacture of the event and acquired paid out for those expert services, like to manage and generate the primary celebration, roadshows, etc. I am the founding father of the SATMA Awards; I am the just one who needs to be compensated for making the idea depending on affordability and what Mageza decides.”

The NLC has handed a dossier of its investigation to the Distinctive Investigating Device (SIU). It has requested the SIU to investigate 4 different lottery-funded initiatives that obtained grants involving October 2020 and will 2023, along with the payment to G4 Brothers.

The NLC has also questioned the SIU to probe alleged “double dipping” in years the place funders in addition to the NLC also chipped in to assist fund the awards.

This includes a grant of R400,000 with the National Heritage Council and just above R62,000 from “SABC Cellular” in 2020 - the same monetary yr through which the celebration gained Pretty much R2.six-million in lottery funding and R13.5-million with the Mpumalanga Section of Tradition, Sports activities and Recreation (MDCSR).

MDCSR funded the awards towards the tune of more than R41-million after it “was awarded the appropriate” to host the SATMA awards for three yrs, beginning from the 2020/21 monetary 12 months.

The Mpumalanga government’s funding for SATMA in excess of that interval was substantially increased than grants to another organisation for cultural projects and activities.

The MDSCR gave R3.5-million to SATMA inside the 2019/20 fiscal yr ahead of ramping up its contribution soon after signing the arrangement to host the awards above the next a few yrs.

The overall funds submitted on the NLC when Mageza applied for that disputed 2023 SATMA funding was R1.2-million. But of the, only R500,000 was allocated for the particular staging from the party. Other line objects in the finances integrated R400,000 for “staff salaries and Advantages”, R200,000 for “stipends” and R100,000 for “journey.”

The awards ended up held on fifteen December at the Durban Worldwide สลาก กิน รัฐบาล Conference Centre. Mageza says it urgently desires the blocked grant to pay the function’s service companies.

The SATMA awards, which were being very first held in 2006, are staged about two evenings and it's unclear how the tens of hundreds of thousands in grants with the NLC, MDCSR as well as other funders have been put in.

Desmond Msomi, the chairman of Mageza, did not respond to particular queries from GroundUp, including the cost of staging a SATMA awards ceremony.

Instead, he said: “Your questions are pointed out. On the other hand, we are suggested by the NLC this make a difference is remaining investigated with the SIU. Therefore, we simply cannot respond to your inquiries till we're encouraged which the investigation is concluded and the quantity owed has been paid to Mageza.”

Right after Mpumalanga “gained the best” to host the awards for 3 yrs, the then provincial Lifestyle, Sport and Recreation MEC, Lindiwe Ntshalintshali, described it as “a boon” for the province.

“Hosting the SATMA Awards has positive financial spinoffs for that Mpumalanga coffers and What's more, it talks on the Division’s mandate of advertising social cohesion.”