The colourful and charismatic Sports Minister Gayton McKenzie has taken to his new job with optimistic rigour, which has been well welcomed by many South Africans. The minister, it appears, is currently fighting multiple battles at the same time and in so doing, he is unfortunately sending confusing, inconsistent and incoherent signals to the masses.
From his eclectic persona and leadership style, his penchant for populist rhetoric, the Bloemfontein-born politician is on a quest to put his best foot forward and make an everlasting impression and impact on South Africans.
There's no study conducted, but we can all generally accept that most South Africans approve of his actions, but the ANC Youth League and the EFF have already condemned his tiff this week with Limpopo Venda pop sensation Makhadzi over support or lack thereof from the department.
Artists and creatives who applied for support from the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture (DSAC) are also not happy they are being called out for essentially being reimbursed between R20,000 and R75,000 during a pandemic. More on that later.
McKenzie’s quest for openness and transparency pertaining to the funds of the DSAC, is a welcome initiative - for the most part.
However, in so doing, we would hope the minister - who has promised to make spinning the number one sport in Mzansi - locate his handbrake lest he crashes into the barrier as he spins the country into a whirlpool of confusion while correctly trying to play open cards with 62 million South Africans.
So why the confusion?
The minister, it appears, is currently fighting multiple battles at the same time and in so doing, he is unfortunately sending confusing, inconsistent and incoherent signals to the masses.
On one front, McKenzie wants to expose rogue elements who have been apparently, allegedly and seemingly benefiting unlawfully from DSAC despite them not being sports people, not being musicians/artists or not being heritage people.
We all want to know who these people are, how much they got, when, why and what is being done about that.
To date, lots of noise has been made, but no one in particular has been ousted by the Minister nor has he borrowed from the politics of the DA and visited a SAPS police station to open a criminal case against these rogue somebodies. At the moment, it's all smoke and mirrors.
On another front, McKenzie wants to show that DSAC has been supporting artists and the likes of Makhadzi through artist bookings for years.
He wants to dispel the notion that artists are not supported. Makhadzi was paid R230,000 for two performances of no more than 30 minutes each in June and in July, a Youth Day government function and the President’s Inauguration, both events in Pretoria.
We're not sure if she got her bank transfer in time, but by the time she had travelled to the US, won a BET Award and returned home with it, we heard how she required loan sharks to fund her trip.
True or not, the R230,000 was good money and an insanely good rate. If you ask me, that was support in the form of a well paid gig less the usual subsistence expenses of food, travel and staffing costs. But was the tiff necessary? Probably not.
Thirdly, McKenzie also exposed the R72 million spent by DSAC during the Covid-19 lockdown on 3,962 beneficiaries with payments ranging from R2,000 to R75,000. The criteria about amounts was not shared with the public, but if there were construction people who had no business getting some of these funds, why not open the criminal cases with the SAPS?
It would be more meaningful, if the minister announced he was conducting some forensic investigation which would determine how much from the R72 million, was rightfully or wrongfully spent. It would be more meaningful if we were told 500 beneficiaries and/or R20 million was spent on rogue elements, rather than what has happened, seemingly painting all with the one stained paint brush.
Another DSAC list released late on Friday night, largely showed scores of private companies and NGOs - including those under the name of former president Kgalema Motlanthe, Hugh Masekela, et al, being funded by the department for training initiatives, staging plays, organising arts exhibitions, music festivals, film productions, dance competitions, theatre productions, comedy shows, fashion shows.
These were funded with amounts of between R50,000 and R600,000 on a project-by-project basis. In the end, DSAC spent over R55 million on 329 different entities for this purpose.
The reasons advanced on the spreadsheets appear warranted, but whether they truly were used for what the funds were requested for is an entirely story altogether, one must hypothesise.
“I am not there to be liked, change is coming,” McKenzie boldly declared during an interview with the SABC News this week.
“There are people who are not artists, sports people, heritage people, that get money from the department.
“On the other end you have sports people and artists that are struggling.
“Under my ministry, we must see where our money gets paid. Once you take public money, the public should know, let me do what I do,” says McKenzie.
And rightly so, Minister McKenzie is correct to be concerned about a mere R2.5 million allocation to Netball South Africa, when the same DSAC spends R1.3 million on a handful of so-called superfans to follow the Boks around in Paris, eating French toast and croissants while overlooking the Eiffel Tower.
Do not get me wrong, we do actually need the likes of Mama Joy, Machaka, Saddam Maake and the like as superfans to track, follow and support our athletes abroad, but this should not be a space reserved for four or five people.
Whether we like it or not, the likes of Mama Joy do represent the black and poor downtrodden masses of South Africa who love sport. But they are not the only ones and the excessive treatment of business class flights and high rated hotel lodgings needs to be looked into.
Former DSAC media liaison Esethu Hasane made the point this week that the superfans are from poor working class backgrounds and should not be shunned. I agree with him, and perhaps I agree with the minister too in terms of he may have bigger battles to deal with, so perhaps on solving the superfans question, we may need to leverage private partners in the form of beer companies, betting companies, airlines, petroleum companies and the like, to fund (partially or in-full) these initiatives, rather than relying on the public purse.
Can we not have a situation where a minister is complaining on SABC News about a supposed R20 million spent to fund the buildings of private companies without sufficiently explaining why our taxpayer money is being spent on such.
Can we also perhaps have Minister McKenzie direct a clear way forward about what is to be done, as former president Thabo Mbeki likes to ask.
His loud initiative cannot be about chaos, confusion and transparency only, it must be followed by a clear plan of action, with actionable steps.
Yes Minister, release the documents, print the names on the excel spreadsheets, be transparent, but let us know, what it is to be done, to whom, when and how.
* Sihle Mlambo is a content manager for IOL’s Business, Sport and Lifestyle.
* The views expressed are not necessarily the views of IOL or Independent Media.
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