Artists battle to access funding
Mthethwa says R150m meant for sport, arts and culture is still to be distributed among successful applicants
THE SPORT, Arts and Culture Department is finding it more difficult to issue Covid-19 relief funds to artists when compared to the relatively smooth transactions to athletes, who have federations mediating on their behalf.
Sport, Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa had announced on March 25 a relief fund for the sports and arts industries. The fund would see R150 million being distributed to athletes and artists who had been hard hit by the closure of businesses during the lockdown.
The application processes for the arts and sports industries closed in April. Two panels were appointed for the industries.
To date, 293 athletes have received R20 000 each to cushion them during the lockdown that has brought sport and entertainment to a halt.
Mthethwa yesterday said that two adjudication panels were set up to handle applications for sport and arts, respectively.
“From sport we worked through the federations, and we insisted that we want these funds to reach athletes. However, from arts and culture we do not have those federations but the good thing is that we have national organisations and we will engage them, because in the final analysis we want to make sure that our people get assistance.”
On the sporting front, the department began payment to successful athletes’ applications on April 23. After a resubmission process the department has 473 applications from 25 different sporting federations.
Mthethwa said that there have been concerns with the closing date which was April 6.
He said there was a possibility of reopening applications since the department was concerned with the number of unsuccessful applicants, particularly from the arts and culture sector.
The minister said he has been alerted by the panel that some applications may have fallen through due to the lack of access to internet during the pandemic, and the tight deadline.
The total number of adjudicated applications sits at 1 050 from 5 000 applications. A total of 232 have been approved, while 203 applications were referred to the department for further verification.
The department said 603 applications were unsuccessful. However, applications who were unsuccessful were welcomed to engage the appeals committee.
Mthethwa said some of the reasons the applications failed were because some artists failed to provide proof of events, missing cancellation documents or contract documents and other outstanding documentation.
Furthermore, Mthethwa challenged the SABC to stop giving attention to international artists and start considering local content.