Gayton McKenzie's broken promises risk festivals collapse and job losses

Funding cuts, attempted suspensions and orders for investigations are just a snapshot of the chaos that has swirled around Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture Gayton McKenzie in the past few weeks.

Dissent is growing in the cultural community after McKenzie’s promises of support and funding to various festivals, theatres and cultural organisations have come to naught, placing the livelihoods of artists in all these sectors in jeopardy.

A collective of South African arts festivals have issued a statement requesting an urgent meeting with McKenzie with regard to festival funding. They have requested the meeting to address funding uncertainty and the looming potential impact on jobs and opportunities in the sector as a result of McKenzie’s withholding of funds.

“We are not seeking confrontation, we wish to set the record straight and engage constructively with the government about the future of our sector, particularly after receiving neither funding nor clarity about funding over the past year,” said the chairperson of the National Arts Festival board, Professor Siphiwo Mahala.

The economic and cultural impact of festivals is significant. In 2024/25, four major arts festivals alone presented 761 works in 2,380 performances, directly employing more than 6,000 artists and paying more than R34-million in fees. Many of these works went on to tour other festivals and theatres, providing more jobs and opportunities.

Mahala called for “urgent action” to resolve the current impasse. “The festivals collectively call for engagement with the minister and the department to clarify policy, rebuild trust and ensure that the needs of festivals, artists and the communities (who benefit from the economic impact of festivals) are addressed in current and future budget cycles. We have sent a letter to the minister requesting such engagement and we await his timely response.”

McKenzie, leader of the Patriotic Alliance, was given the crucial portfolio as part of the coalition government agreement. Early expectations were buoyed when he toured the country and made loud and bold promises to many in public and on record.

He has since defiantly reneged on them and is of the opinion that some of the festivals, which have grown a considerable economy for artists and often without subsidies, feel a certain “entitlement to funding”, as he noted in a statement.

Some of the entities that have had their funding threatened are in the Western Cape. McKenzie has charged that their funding comes at the expense of other “new and innovative concepts”. Proven track records and a singular focus on inclusion, diversity, sustainability and skills transfer by all the festivals over the years have had no traction with the minister, it seems.

On 24 July, Suidoosterfees chief executive Jana Hattingh wrote to McKenzie’s office requesting “guidance” after noting that the department had put the iconic festival in a precarious position by withdrawing funding for two flagship projects. This followed the rejection of its application for support from the department’s controversial Mzansi Golden Economy initiative.

The Suidoosterfees, which takes place in the inner city of Cape Town, created 4,049 jobs and issued 32,814 tickets this year, and 8,000 pupils from Grades 1 to 12 attended SOF Junior, the children’s festival. For many, this was their first exposure to theatre and the arts.

“The sudden withdrawal of both national and provincial government flagship funding has placed Suidoosterfees in a precarious financial position,” said Hattingh.

The Western Cape Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport confirmed that the Suidoosterfees had received funding for the current financial year as well as the past 13 years.

“The Suidoosterfees received funding of R216,634 from the [department] in the 2024/25 financial year. It will also be receiving further funding in the current financial year, which is in the process of being finalised,” said head of department Guy Redman. The stated amount, though generous, falls far short of what is required to successfully stage a festival, which runs into millions.

Doubling down

Meanwhile, McKenzie has doubled down, issuing a directive on 18 September to the Western Cape department’s director-general, Cynthia Khumalo, acting deputy director Sibusiso Tsanyane and chief audit executive Sunita Ramanand in which he called for an “investigation” into funding, particularly that disbursed during Covid-19.

McKenzie singled out the Cape Town International Jazz Festival, which received R3-million, but couldn’t take place because of lockdown and social distancing.

The festival is owned by Iqbal Survé’s Sekunjalo Investments. Its former director was the late Rashid Lombard, also the chief executive of espAfrika, a major events company in Cape Town.

Also, McKenzie’s attempt at suspending National Arts Council (NAC) former chief executive Julie Diphofa and acting chief executive Reshma Bhoola has been ignored.

In a statement issued on 17 September, the NAC noted that Diphofa and Bhoola were “currently fulfilling their roles as arts development manager and interim financial officer respectively”.

“We would like to clarify they are not under suspension,” the statement read, defying McKenzie’s order on 12 September for the officials to be suspended.

The NAC resolved on 15 September to appoint an independent investigator to probe allegations of misconduct related to its disbursements from the Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme.

The festival lifeline

It is common knowledge that there is an uneven distribution of festivals in South Africa. According to research on the effect of Covid-19 on South Africa’s cultural sector that was conducted in 2020 by London’s King’s College, most festivals are hosted in the Western Cape (95) and Gauteng (57).

These provinces have more established cultural infrastructure and have not been as reliant on state support. KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape hosted 21 and 17 festivals respectively, whereas the other rural provinces hosted fewer than 10 festivals each.

The policy report, Future Festivals South Africa: Lessons from the Age of Covid-19, authored by Roberta Comunian, Fiona Drummond, Jonathan Gross, Jen Snowball and Delon Tarentaal, noted that Covid-19 had a devastating effect on live arts. It highlighted a recent “national mapping study of the South African creative economy”, which indicated that the “performance and celebration” industries – including all live music, performance arts and festivals – grew at a faster annual rate (3.4%) than the rest of the economy (1.1%) between 2016 and 2018.

The creative economy provides work opportunities and upskilling for millions in South Africa.

Although Covid was a ground-zero shock to the system, several festivals, including the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees (KKNK), with seasoned chief executive Hugo Theart at the helm, used technological innovations to keep artists afloat, as did the Suidoosterfees.

Both provided nonphysical online platforms for audiences to participate.

The Suidoosterfees, with Hattingh as head, organised a “pop-up drive-in” theatre festival where audiences could watch shows from their cars. Covid-19 severely affected many in this precarious sector, tragically resulting in a spike in suicides and homelessness, and prompting the establishment of the nonprofit Tribuo Fund.

The fund is a collaborative endeavour initiated by Karen Meiring, then the head of DStv Afrikaans channel kykNET; Cornelia Faasen of the Nasionale Afrikaanse Teater-inisatief; and the Feesteforum (Festival Forum) consisting of Aardklop, the KKNK, Innibos, the Suidoosterfees, Vrystaat Kunstefees and Stellenbosch Woordfees.

Tribuo aims to support freelance ­artists financially, as it did during and after the pandemic, and is dependent on tax-deductible contributions from its supporters.

But for a moment, shift your gaze to Elizabethan England (1558 to 1603). Shakespeare, considered the world’s greatest English-language playwright, received extensive state subsidies. The Bard’s company, first named Lord Chamberlain’s Men, was financed by Queen Elizabeth I, a patronage continued by King James I, resulting in the troupe’s name change to The King’s Men.

Without help from the “powers that be” Shakespeare might very well have lived in obscurity, surviving the Black Plague that killed at least four of his siblings and other family members. In “lockdown”, surrounded by death in disease-ridden London, Shakespeare penned some of his best works, including King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus and Timon of Athens.

The plague had forced theatres to close, an experience that was traumatically repeated in South Africa during the Covid pandemic in 2020.

It has been a long, slow haul recovering losses. And just as artists and cultural practitioners in South Africa began to revive the sector, McKenzie came along.

Breaking what has been fixed

It is significant that all these festivals, many of which receive only about 30% of their funding from the state (regional or national), are Afrikaans-language, which may have piqued McKenzie’s interest.

Most of these festivals were born from an attempt to find a sustainable alternative to government funding for the arts when, in 1994, financial support as it was known in South Africa was irrevocably changed – as it should have been because it benefited only a small minority.

As the festivals broke new ground over the years, the experience, knowledge and know-how that have been gained have led to these festivals providing much-needed exposure to new work and new audiences. Many, like Aardklop, have stopped even thinking of applying for any state funding.

Saartjie Botha, director of the Stellenbosch Woordfees (launched in 2000), said the festival, which has never received funding in the past, had applied for the first time but was turned down. The explanation given was that the festival was “a nonprofit company and not a nonprofit organisation”.

Botha said the festival had obtained “clearance” that it was indeed not-for-profit, but had been turned down anyway.

In the meantime, McKenzie has disbursed funds to 22 nonprofits whose applications have been approved. There have been calls for this list to be made public.

Meetings between McKenzie and experienced festival organisers offering guidance and their expertise appear to have been more theatre than a fact-finding mission.

Each new broom

Each new minister of sport, arts and culture brings with him – they have all been men so far – his own brand of patronage and chaos, and always at the expense of the arts industry’s long-term sustainability.

Culture is a valuable export and one of the most pleasant and effective methods of introducing and highlighting a country’s cultural wealth to the world.

Think Sarafina (controversially entirely state-funded), think Ladysmith Black Mambazo, think the films District 9 and Tsotsi, think Athol Fugard, John Kani and Winston Ntshona’s The Island, think Mbongeni Ngema, Percy Mtwa and Barney Simon’s Woza Albert! and Taliep Petersen and David Kramer’s District Six: The Musical. There are many more.

Apart from this component, without song, dance, literature, music, theatre and poetry, the world would be a much bleaker place than it already is.

Meanwhile, the department’s Mzansi Golden Economy initiative and its application process have attracted the attention of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Sport, Arts and Culture. Chairperson Joe McGluwa recently announced that the committee had received a number of “disturbing complaints” from across the industry, including “repeated funding to the same companies, newly registered entities receiving money, and serious compliance issues”. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.