A Call For NAC To Account

The arts departments at Rhodes University have been deeply concerned and disappointed by the way artists are being treated by the National Arts Council of South Africa (NAC), in their role as the disbursement body of the Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme (PESP). As departments that train artists, we write to express our solidarity with the group of artists, that includes Sibongile Mngoma, who have been staging a sit-in at the offices of the National Arts Council (NAC).  The roll-out of the R300 million PESP funding, meant for the creation of employment and the support of artistic endeavours for all in the creative and cultural industry during a time of great difficulty and strife, has been unacceptably slow, delayed, and marred by mismanagement and dishonesty. We concur with the artists currently occupying the NAC that the following eight questions urgently need to be answered:

1. List of all those who have been paid and how much?
2. On stream 1, is this now completed? Who was paid? How much?
3. On stream 2, full list of those who are contracted, ie, full list of those who were announced and those who have not been announced;
4. Full list of the 1300 PESP recipients;
5. When are payments being finalised for all those who have signed their contracts?
6. When are payments and contracts being finalised for those who are still awaiting contracts?
7. When are payments, contracts and letters being finalised for all those who are still under review?
8. When are those who have been rejected being notified?

We see the students that we teach as those who will one day take on the sacred and vital role shared by all artists, where their creative expressions constitute the fibre of any society. Artists illuminate and mirror who we could be and who we are. How can these artists survive without the proper support of government when other sectors do? While we acknowledge the good work of disbursing grants and scholarships to numerous artists and students in the past, we fear that the handling of the PESP will have a detrimental impact on the NAC as an institution and an ally of the arts. Toward this end, we join the call for the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture (DSAC) to consider engaging institutions of higher learning as well as other knowledgeable industry role players to work towards a sustainable solution toward the plight of the artists.

Issued by the Department of Drama, Fine Art and Music & Musicology; Rhodes University

#Im4TheArts

#ArtistsLivesMatter