Singer and songwriter Langa Mavuso has initiated legal proceedings against event organiser Lwando Njeza for allegedly failing to pay his performance fee.
Following his appearance at the Nightingales Experience at the Guild Theatre in June, Mavuso claims he is still owed R75,000, which was agreed upon.
Njeza is also accused of owing Vusi Nova more than R30,000 for a performance in East London in May.
Mavuso’s manager, Phindile Matroshe, said attempts to get hold of Njeza had failed.
“We were approached by him [Njeza] for Langa to perform at the Guild Theatre. He had access to Computicket and he was the one handling the money for the show.
“So as the manager we paid for Langa’s flights and accommodation with his team. We knew we would [recoup] the money from the ticket sales we made.”
She said the flight and accommodation and paying the band cost about R40,000.
Matroshe said three days after the event, Njeza shared a statement from Computicket showing the money they had made.
That was the last time they heard from him, he said.
“On June 27, Lwando sent us a statement from Computicket showing us the money we made, from the 28th until today, he stopped taking our calls.”
She said they had sent communications through lawyers but the organiser has kept mum, and has allegedly been on the run. “Not only has he [allegedly] scammed us, we also received a call from Vusi Nova saying Lwando also [allegedly] scammed him.”
Matroshe said they were going to court.
“We are going the legal way. We have sent him our [notice of] breach of contract, and the next thing is to send [him] summons, which we are going to do today [Wednesday] or tomorrow.
“We called him telephonically, on WhatsApp and also called his aunt, who said Lwando had stopped picking up her calls too.
“We went as far as messaging his relatives on Facebook who are connected to him and all of them haven’t been able to assist because they say Lwando was running away from his own family.
“Computicket takes three days to pay the account, they paid the Guild Theatre their percentage and [paid] the other money to Lwando Njeza.
“He was supposed to pay us our share on the fourth day,” she said.
Vusi Nova’s manager, Tsholofelo Ntuli, claimed Njeza had paid them half the amount for the event held in East London in May, and did not pay for an event held in Soweto.
“He said he was going to get back to us this week.”
Ntuli said, after the concert in East London, Njeza allegedly gave them a fake quotation.
“He told us he had to pay [for the] sound system and our accommodation, so when we spoke with the people who organised both the accommodation and system they said the venue and sound were free.
“He gave us a fake quotation basically.”
A Guild Theatre employee said Njeza had been paid.
The Daily Dispatch reached out to Njeza but he refused to comment.
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