The Lottery has stopped a grant on the lavishly funded annual SATMA awards. Illustration: Lisa Nelson (SATMA brand superimposed above primary illustration)

From 2019 to 2022 the South African Regular Tunes Awards received around R16-million through the Lottery.
But the Lottery has withheld payment in the 2023 grant pursuing an investigation.
The NLC has requested the Exclusive Investigating Device to probe alleged “double dipping” in yrs where funders other than the NLC also chipped in to aid fund the awards.
The scale of funding with the yearly two night occasion is astonishing.
The Mpumalanga government has funded the awards with around R41-million immediately after it “was awarded the best” to host the SATMA awards for 3 decades, beginning from the 2020/21 monetary 12 months.
This has been Besides Lottery funding.
The Countrywide Lotteries Commission (NLC) is refusing to pay for a R1.2-million grant it at first accredited for an annual standard songs awards ceremony. The identical occasion also received tens of millions of rand from the Mpumalanga provincial government.

From 2019 to 2022 the NLC awarded numerous grants totalling Nearly R16.4-million to your Mageza Heritage Foundation, the organisers of the once-a-year South African Regular Songs Awards (SATMA).

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

GroundUp has exposed significant corruption while in the NLC that occurred until eventually the prior board and management was replaced in 2022. The new NLC leadership is aiming to clear up the corruption of your past.

The NLC’s investigation focused on both of those the 2023 funding and before grants awarded to Mageza to phase the awards. The investigation also probed a payment of over R718,000, allegedly compensated from Lottery money to G4 Brothers, of which Dumisani Gobe, the founding father of the SATMA awards, is a director.

Questioned if Mageza paid out G4 a licencing or some other costs to stage the awards, Goba said: “G4 was commissioned to complete a creation of the function and received paid out for people expert services, like to handle and deliver the principle event, roadshows, and so forth. I am the founding father of the SATMA Awards; I'm the a single who must be compensated for producing the thought determined by affordability and what Mageza decides.”

The NLC has handed a dossier of its investigation on the Exclusive Investigating Unit (SIU). It has questioned the SIU to research four different lottery-funded jobs that acquired grants among Oct 2020 and will 2023, together with the payment to G4 Brothers.

The NLC has also asked the SIU to probe alleged “double dipping” in decades in which funders in addition to the NLC also chipped in to aid fund the awards.

This features a grant of R400,000 within the National Heritage Council and just around R62,000 from “SABC Mobile” in 2020 - the exact same economical yr where the party received Virtually R2.6-million in lottery funding and R13.5-million from your Mpumalanga Section of Lifestyle, Athletics and Recreation (MDCSR).

MDCSR funded the awards on the tune of above R41-million right after it “was awarded the correct” to host the SATMA awards for 3 several years, beginning during the 2020/21 fiscal year.

The Mpumalanga governing administration’s funding for SATMA in excess of that period was considerably greater than grants to almost every other organisation for cultural projects and functions.

The MDSCR gave R3.five-million to SATMA during the 2019/twenty financial year ahead of ramping up its contribution immediately after signing the settlement to host the awards around another a few yrs.

The whole funds submitted for the NLC when Mageza applied with the disputed 2023 SATMA funding was R1.2-million. But of this, only R500,000 was allotted for the actual staging of the celebration. Other line things within the spending plan involved R400,000 for “personnel salaries and Advantages”, R200,000 for “stipends” and R100,000 for “travel.”

The awards were held on 15 December for the Durban International ltpbet Convention Centre. Mageza says it urgently needs the blocked grant to pay for the function’s support providers.

The SATMA awards, which ended up very first held in 2006, are staged around two nights and it can be unclear how the tens of millions in grants through the NLC, MDCSR as well as other funders have been expended.

Desmond Msomi, the chairman of Mageza, didn't reply to unique questions from GroundUp, including the expense of staging a SATMA awards ceremony.

As a substitute, he stated: “Your inquiries are observed. Having said that, we are actually encouraged via the NLC that this make a difference is becoming investigated via the SIU. For this reason, we can not reply to your issues till we have been advised the investigation continues to be completed and the amount owed has actually been paid to Mageza.”

Soon after Mpumalanga “gained the ideal” to host the awards for 3 years, the then provincial Tradition, Sport and Recreation MEC, Lindiwe Ntshalintshali, described it as “a boon” for your province.

“Internet hosting the SATMA Awards has optimistic economic spinoffs for the Mpumalanga coffers and In addition, it talks for the Division’s mandate of marketing social cohesion.”