The South African Cultural and Creative Industries Campaign members have accused Sports Arts Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie of prioritising whites, coloureds and members of his political party the Patriotic Alliance (PA) regarding funding for artistic projects.
Now to drive home their dissatisfaction with Minister McKenzie’s behaviour, the artists converged at the Union Buildings on Wednesday where they handed a memorandum of complaints to the office of the Presidency, before proceeding to the offices of McKenzie’s Sports Arts and Culture Department.
Various artistic organisations marched together to both the Union Buildings and the Sports Arts Culture headquarters.
President of the South African Arts and Culture Youth Forum Romeo Ramuada told Tshwane Talks during the march that his organisation was marching against Minister Gayton McKenzie’s decision to unilaterally cancel funding for artists that was previously provided to artists in terms of an initiative known as Mzansi’s Golden Economy.
“Many artistic organisations which McKenzie has decided he will not work with are protesting here today because he has created his own structures and has introduced an initiative which bears strict regulations like centralising all funding activities to one location for all the provinces in the country,” said Ramuada.
“We wrote numerous letters to McKenzie but he has proven himself to be an arrogant person, a dictator and a bully who wants to coerce everybody to accept his decisions without raising objections,” he said.
“McKenzie has undermined us for a long time now and we will fight him until he comes down to grassroots level,” he said.
“We are calling upon McKenzie to step down because his behaviour is not suitable to that of the Minister of the people,” said Ramuada.
Music producer Zama Ntshona told Tshwane Talks that he has been in the music industry for 20 years and that he is a Crown Award winning artist, song-writer and producer who has produced many talented artist in South Africa.
“We are here today pained that Minister McKenzie doesn’t want to listen to the artists of this country because he has failed to take us into his confidence regarding numerous decisions that he has taken without consulting the end-users, who are the artists,” lamented Ntshona.
“We want transparency and accountability from McKenzie regarding the Golden Economy applications for funding submitted by artists,” he said.
He revealed that they have previously delivered a letter of intent to the Department of Sports Arts and Culture indicating that they would be coming to meet Minister McKenzie on Wednesday but McKenzie failed to show up.
“Our letter of intent was received and signed but today it shows that we are being undermined because McKenzie didn’t bother himself to write to us artists and inform us that he would be out of the country today and would not meet us,” fumed Ntshona.
“If McKenzie is disrespectful and not considerate to our demands then why should we as artists respect a junior, Mickey Mouse character who from the Department of Sports to come and deal with us, yet this junior employee won’t have anything to say regarding the intricacies of our music industry,” he said while revealing that he travelled for 12 hours all the way from King William’s Town in the Eastern Cape to come to the march and meet Minister McKenzie.
Jeremiah Moloka Mogotsi told Tshwane Talks that he is looking for his royalties from McKenzie regarding a song called “Tobetsa” which he (Mogotsi) released in 2005 but didn’t get any money for it though the song was sung by many other different artists besides himself.
The 250 marching artists revealed that they were received with respect at the Union Buildings but were treated with contempt at the offices of the absent Mackenzie’s Department of Sports Arts and Culture.
They therefore refused to hand in their memorandum at that department.
Copy of Memorandums:
20250512 FINAL PRESIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM_ South African Cultural and Creative Industries Campaign (1)
20250512 FINAL Contextual Background to PRESIDENTIAL Memorandum