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EFF adds voice to protesting artists’ pleas for funding Nica Richards
Artists continue to stage a sit-in at the National Arts Council offices, saying they are going nowhere until they get paid what is due to them. Photo: Twitter/@tsepomhlongo Artists have been protesting and staging sit-ins at various arts councils across the country, citing prolonged lack of funding.
As soon as Covid-19 lockdown ensued in March last year, the livelihoods of thousands of artists were instantly throttled.
Since then, they have been attempting to get relief from the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture.
Many have still not been awarded funding by the National Arts Council (NAC), an agency of the department.
The CEO of the National Arts Council (NAC), Rosemary Mangope and the organisation’s Chief Financial officer, Clifton Changfoot have been placed on suspension following a fall out over the administration of a R300-million Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme.
The stimulus package, announced in 2020, was aimed at giving members of the art sector which was hard hit by the lockdown an opportunity to generate an income.
The NAC, which is an agency of the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture, was chosen to administer the R300-million stimulus package. In a statement released at the time, Vusumuzi Mkhize the department’s director-general, said that the organisation had “in the past proven to be capable to administer projects such as these”.