Tribe One Dinokeng music festival — Implicated City of Tshwane officials to be investigated

In a confidential report called for at the end of 2023, councillors in the City of Tshwane’s municipal public accounts committee (MPAC) concluded that funds should be clawed back directly from officials named in forensic investigations into at least two major projects that were found to have irregularly or wastefully spent public resources, to the collective tune of hundreds of millions of rands.

That report has now been approved by the council and passed on to city manager Johann Mettler for further action.

“This is now an approved decision of council, so it has to go forward,” said DA councillor and MPAC member, Siobhan Muller, who was instrumental in tabling the report.

As the inciting incident, the report cites a 2017 KPMG forensic investigation of a R60-million investment into a first-time music festival. It was approved and administered by then-mayor (now re-appointed Minister of Electricity) Kgosientsho “Sputla” Ramokgopa; his city manager Jason Ngobeni and his deputy for strategy development and implementation, Lindiwe Kwele, as well as the head of communications, marketing and events, Nomasonto Ndlovu.  

For a summary of Daily Maverick’s full investigation, watch this video, produced and edited by Emilie Gambade and Malibongwe Tyilo: 

The three-day event was supposed to have taken place in September 2014, promising up to 100,000 attendees and millions of rands in tourism, socioeconomic and cultural investment into the impoverished area of Dinokeng — specifically, the towns of Cullinan and Rayton, and the informal settlement of Refilwe.

The project was brokered by Ndlovu, who introduced Ramokgopa’s mayoral team to the festival’s so-called masterminds – Sean Watson, the managing director for Africa of global entertainment behemoth Sony Music Entertainment and his friend and colleague, Jandre Louw, CEO of Rockstar 4000. 

Upon winning the pitch, the two executives registered a management joint venture (JV), called Tribeone Festivals Pty Ltd. The City paid the JV a R25-million “cash grant” (excluding VAT) in three tranches over the course of 2014 for “vague” line items such as “the securing of naming rights and international artists”; “event build-up” and a “global campaign roll-out”.

Ramokgopa’s office also committed to paying for the development of “certain infrastructure at the site where the festival would take place”. This investment quickly ballooned to as much as R40-million, and was installed, not on City of Tshwane-owned land, but on a tract belonging to Cullinan Diamond Mine, a privately owned company. (Forensic investigators were unable to trace the complex web of internal and third-party payments made during the project to come up with a definitive final figure.)

In October 2014, Ndlovu told the city council during a review session that, “according to the event organisers [Louw and Watson], initial estimates indicated that the festival, if leveraged correctly, would realise around R8-billion in marketing and PR exposure (global and local), as well as revenues of around R235-million.” 

But preparations for the festival degenerated into chaos in early September 2014 and the event was cancelled two weeks before doors were due to have opened, after Kwele turned down a request from Watson and Louw for an additional R20-million in funding. Only 318 tickets were sold. 

It is unclear how much of the R25-million transferred to Watson and Louw’s JV was spent on the project, as a legal case against the executives is still pending and the company was never audited. 

Most of the infrastructure built on the festival site was subsequently vandalised and pillaged for scrap. The sewage system build was never completed, despite the dire need for water, sewage and electrical upgrades in the neighbouring Refilwe settlement. 

Deputy city manager Lindiwe Kwele told Daily Maverick that Ramokgopa and his team had made the investment because the event was pitched as a “cut-and-paste replication of a winning formula” in Ghana and Nigeria.  

“We associated ourselves with the Sony-led event organisers due to the credibility of the Sony brand,” Ndlovu told the council.

However, as the forensic investigation noted, in addition to clear contraventions of supply chain management processes within the City of Tshwane, the contract signed between the parties contained “no specific financial obligations” for Sony, Rockstar 4000 or the management joint venture, and no milestones for payment, profit sharing agreements or any other legal guardrails to protect the city from overspending or irregular spending on the part of Watson and Louw. 

The report also deemed them unfit to carry out the role in the first place.

“We understand that both Sony Music and Rockstar [4000] are record labels… Their primary business is not to arrange music festivals. We could not establish any prior experience in this regard by either of these entities,” investigators wrote.  

Sony Music Entertainment, as well as Watson and Louw, have declined to comment on Daily Maverick’s investigation, and Watson remains in his position as Sony’s MD for Africa. 

In December, Louw staged a similar but smaller event on Namibia’s Skeleton Coast, sponsored by the Mobile Telecommunications Company (MTC). It was poorly attended.

Muller says the City of Tshwane’s MPAC intends to lodge a formal complaint against Watson with Sony Music Entertainment’s parent company, Sony Corporation, based in Tokyo, Japan. 

As for the city officials implicated in the debacle, Muller says that, with “a good number of other cases” of wasteful expenditure pending, it is difficult to say when charges will be brought, or assets seized. 

The report, accepted by the council last month, also names the Rooiwal Waste Water Treatment Plant, where R147-million in upgrades was allegedly paid to corruption accused Edwin Sodi and his company, Blackhead Consulting, in 2019. 

Most of those officials named in the confidential report have left the City of Tshwane, but some remain in positions of power elsewhere in government or government-owned or affiliated corporations. Several officials named in one investigation are also reportedly named in others. 

“People who have left the city are not free of charges,” said Muller. 

“According to both the law and the Municipal Finance Management Act, if you were liable at the time, you’re liable in perpetuity.” DM

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