About 400 artists in the Eastern Cape and nationally will heave a sigh of relief after the South Gauteng High Court gave the National Arts Council just 72 hours to fork out R3.46m of an R8m grant it had promised to the National Arts Festival.
The NAC reneged on the R8m grant it set aside for the festival to run three projects which would have provided employment to 400 artists nationally and in the Makhanda region.
The high court also suspended the effect of the NAC’s letter to the festival in terms of which it reduced its grant to just over R3m. The suspension of the effect of the letter is pending an application by the festival to have the NAC’s decision to reduce its funding set aside in its entirety.
The court on Wednesday said if the NAC did not pay the balance of the R8m, the festival could again approach the court on an urgent basis for relief.
The court order is also likely to send a message to the NAC that it needs to rethink similar letters it sent to hundreds of other organisations and artists cutting back on promised grants from the R300m presidential employment stimulus package (PESP).
Sports, arts and culture minister Nathi Mthethwa earlier this week promised a forensic investigation into the mismanagement of the R300m stimulus package the NAC was tasked to disburse. He suggested on Monday that the mismanagement of the stimulus package included applicants receiving more money than they’d applied for and that more money had been promised than was available.
Festival CEO Monica Newton says in an affidavit that the contract between the festival and the NAC stipulated that by January this year it was required to create hundreds of jobs with three proposed projects which were to be completed by March. This required a kickoff amount of R5.6m with a further R2.4m in “mid-progress”.
The festival had immediately entered into a series of binding contracts with artists and creatives and spent its own funds to launch the projects. But it never received any funds from the NAC.
Instead, in early March it received a letter informing it the NAC was withdrawing its grant notification letter and revising its initial grant of R8m down to an amount of just R3.4m. An appeal to the minister was dismissed. They were warned if they did not enter into a contract for the lesser amount the contract would be forfeited.
It was at this point that they resorted to court.
Newton on Thursday described it as a major court victory which sent out a clear message that the NAC could not enforce unilateral changes to a contract-forming part of the PESP.
She said: “The court effectively repudiated the arts council’s stance that it should be allowed to unilaterally change grant agreements. They can’t, and that much is now clear. We’re hoping that this ruling will embolden all other organisations to challenge what the NAC is doing.”
She said that although full funding had not yet been restored, the ruling means that the festival could at least begin to honour its contracts with artists, creatives and technical professionals who had been working with it on its three projects.
The festival-managed projects were set to include the establishment of an arts hub in Makhanda, and a project that would encourage artists and creatives to interrogate the 1820 Settlers’ Monument with its complex legacy and reimagine its future.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has decimated the industry and now is the time that all organisations and individuals in the sector need to pool their expertise and resources to find, and fund, big solutions. The NAC should be partnering to deliver that vision,” Newton said.
NAC spokesperson Tshepo Mashiane had not yet commented at the time of writing.
However, in a statement on Tuesday, the NAC said that out of the R300m provided it had by Monday disbursed a total of R84.6m to 639 beneficiaries.
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