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Government begins to distribute money from sports, arts relief fund

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Minister Nathi Mthethwa. Picture: Twitter
Minister Nathi Mthethwa. Picture: Twitter

The department of sport, arts and culture has said that 293 sporting applicants have already received money from the department’s Covid-19 relief fund.

Minister Nathi Mthethwa on Monday announced that 473 applications were received from the sporting sector from 25 sporting federations and that 291 had been “approved for payment”.

The R150-million relief fund for arts, culture and sport was announced in late March in response to the national state of disaster as all mass gatherings were banned and both the sport and arts sector ground to a halt.

Mthethwa also emphasised that “the different federations facilitated the payment to athletes and other technical staff”.

The minister clarified that there was a R20 000 cap per application and that those who missed the April 6 deadline were not considered.

The department said that disabled athletes were the first to receive payments, while the surfing body, netball, golf, gymnastics, fencing and canoeing athletes, including tri-athletes, had received money from the fund.

With regards to hosting sporting events behind closed doors, Mthethwa said that he had been in contact with footballing bosses Danny Jordaan and Irvin Khoza, “so that they counsel me”.

He said he would meet with both of them formally soon and wanted all stakeholders to speak with one voice when the time was right.

He made it clear that playing behind closed doors depended on the type of sport.

“There are others [besides football] that have pleaded their case, like golf, and motivated strongly that the nature of that sport is not contact sport and safe in terms of the safety regulations,” Mthethwa said, adding that they were looking into that as well.

“But with football, it will be dependent on Safa – as the mother body of football in the country – and the PSL. And we hope they will guide us with one voice.”

We are not going to be happy as government that money has not been spent when we know there is an outcry out there.
Minister Nathi Mthethwa

From an arts perspective the minister was concerned about the large number of artists that were rejected.

He said that most of the reasons were due to missing documents or not enough information but that other concerns raised were due to the tight submission deadlines.

He added that what helped make the sport adjudication process a lot smoother was the cooperation of federations, especially since the department wanted specific details of the athletes who were to receive and have received money.

He said that on the arts and culture side he would be meeting with the various industry bodies and organisations to find out how they could help the department reach the artists.

“We are not going to be happy as government that money has not been spent when we know there is an outcry out there, when we know there is desperation out there,” Mthethwa said.

The minister said the department might make a second call for applications due to the technical glitches experienced by the department so far.

The department is also pleading for more local content to dominate the airways and Mthethwa said they would be “engaging the public broadcaster on this”.

“It doesn’t help to have needletime benefiting people from the UK, the US, when we have artists in the country starving.”

Arts and Culture numbers

The total number adjudicated upon is 1050.

232 were recommended.

603 were not recommended.

203 were referred to the department of sports, arts and culture.

12 is the number of digital applications to be moved to the National Film and Video Foundation.




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