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IOL News reports that from Cape Town to Makhanda, and Potchefstroom to Bloemfontein, the curtain is falling on SA’s biggest arts festivals as government funding is withdrawn. Funding for the provincial flagship programme has been cut by Minister Gayton McKenzie’s national sports, arts and culture department.
The blow will hit flagship events including Oudtshoorn’s Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees, Makhanda’s National Arts Festival, and the Cape Town International Jazz Festival. Aardklop in Potchefstroom, the Cape Town Carnival, Innibos in Mpumalanga, and Vryfees in the Free State will also be affected. The festivals are the lifeblood of SA’s cultural stage, generating millions of rand in revenue, putting food on the tables of hundreds of artists and technicians, and drawing tens of thousands of visitors each year. The funding crisis began when festival organisers were told, one after another, that their existing funding had been declined and that they should apply for support through the Mzansi Golden Economy (MGE) Fund.
Most of the MGE applications were apparently rejected. This has left festivals in the lurch without the financial support they had relied on for years. DA MP Leah Knott said in parliament on Tuesday that the department was failing to meet its constitutional mandate and was being used as a political tool. She called for reinstatement of funding for established festivals, full disclosure of all MGE allocations, a depoliticised adjudication process, and a full account of every budget reallocation.
Western Cape sports, arts and culture MEC Ricardo Mackenzie said the provincial government was “perturbed” by the cuts, but that the provincial government would continue working with partners to sustain major cultural events.
Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Brandon Nel at IOL News
Read too, Gayton McKenzie faces rising backlash over funding cuts to cultural festivals, at IOL News
Get other news reports at the SA LabourNews home page