Labels: Lizza, Pallo Jordan, Vansa

Statement issued by: Dianne Kohler-Barnard, DA spokesperson on Safety & Security
Friday, June 08, 2007


Let me begin by quoting from one of the hundreds of e-mails I received from around the country when I tested the water amongst South African artists - just to check that the fears that I was feeling were, indeed founded: This is typical of the reports I received, "the bottom line is that I don't think that the arts community has ever been in such dire straits. I believe that they are at their most financially impoverished, and totally under-resourced and non-supported. A huge part of what defines our country nationally and internationally is its arts and culture and there is simply NO vision or understanding of the industry leading us. There is no functioning relationship between the department and the arts makers on the ground. Funding systems are shoddy, haphazard and inefficient - the shotgun approach of wanting to politically score brownie points and distributing the funds without any clearly defined context is not helpful.

At no point do we as full time professional art makers - have any sense of what the country's ideas / vision / plan for the arts is in any real terms."

Minister for your Department of Arts and Culture to have R12-million unspent, over R3-million spent irregularly, not to produce quarterly reports - sounds impossible but it took you just three years to suffer the ignominy of being hauled before SCOPA.


Certainly your Department is in a mess - a qualified report seems about the best you're able to do year after year, then again it took so long for you, Minister, to get around to appointing a new National Arts Council board - two years I believe was it since you fired the last lot for utter incompetence - that things are falling apart there, too.


A qualified report - again - with more vacancies than staff, funds pushed about at a whim and bizarre accounting experiments involving R1,3-million. The grant system is as much of a disaster as the grant system via Lotto - remember the Lotto? - so slow as to be virtually defunct. Money given to projects not approved, and not given to those that were - it's a complete, unmitigated disaster.


The auditor general found a whole new batch of problems generated in the absence of any tangible leadership: assets misplaced, not recorded, incorrectly recorded or just plain missing. Disappeared.

In fact our heritage, when not being rewritten to suit the ideology of the current regime, seems to be evaporating at a quite astounding rate. If it's not the wholesale wiping out of history via the Mike Sutcliffe's of the world who would rather our streets honoured despots from other lands rather than heroes from any corner but that of the ANC, then it's the wholesale thievery of the artifacts that represent what made us what we are.


Well over 14 000 heritage objects have been pilfered from our museums, galleries, castles and even our churches over the past four years. Then again what exactly are we doing to safeguard it? What bright spark decided that Pierneef's "Near Golden Gate" should hang unattended at the SABC in Johannesburg, despite being valued at R5-million? It's gone, along with 17th
century ceramics from Cape Town, two masterpieces from the University of the Eastern Cape, a Moses Seleko sculpture from Pretoria last year.the list goes on and on.


Art theft has been pinpointed as one of the top three global crimes - and also one of those crimes that, like rape, is vastly under reported. Galleries don't want to report their losses as it makes them look incompetent, which of course they must be, and private collectors want to remain just that. And here in Parliament, well - we know we have the Travelgate thieves amongst us still - but someone took the solid silver tea set, the R200 000 diamond ring, the antiques, the paintings, indeed, the artworks from the local government offices - they're all gone.

Why aren't you doing your job Minister?

Once again I waited for the Auditor General's report, and once again I just ended up shaking my head in disbelief. 22 entities with poor reports - what on earth is happening at the Pan South African Language Board, or Afrikaanse Taalmuseum, or Nelson Mandela Museum, or the National English Literary Museum?

Time and time again the Auditor general asks where the assets are and the words 'incorrect', 'incomplete' and 'inaccurate' are repeated, parrot-like, throughout his reports. He seems to believe that this nation's artworks are disappearing into thin air, and sadly, it seems he's absolutely correct.

Why is it Minister that you keep on and on repeating your same mistakes, hiring utterly incompetent staff - when indeed you take the time to hire any at all? Surly at the very least the taxpayers could expect that those enormously paid staff members at that most underdeveloped yet most expensive entity in your stable, the Freedom Park Trust, would know that internal audit work is a prerequisite?

In my own Province the Natal Museum had shown such promise, but now it's all gone awry, with no functioning internal audit, no inventories for collections.

Do the people you hire not understand that leave has to be applied and accounted for, that there have to be funds to pay for post-retirement medical aid benefits, that fraud protection plans have to be instituted for a reason, Minister do they even know what a measurable objective is? The auditor general doesn't seem to think so.

Does it not embarrass you to have the Auditor General point out that those around you have no idea how to monitor or evaluate contracts, that your asset management is a failure, again, as it is with virtually every other entity under your control?

You know seldom do I see such breathtaking audacity as I do on those occasions when my schedule allows me to attend the portfolio committee meetings - hamstrung as they are as you, Minister, just don't bother to appoint a Chair. If there's no one in the ANC capable of doing the job, the DA is perfectly competent to take over. One might imagine your Ministry was shooting for an Oscar with all the 'actors' it's currently supporting - the question being asked now is how long it will take you to appoint another DG - also two years?

Minister, hearing from the Northern Flagship Institution in Pretoria that although they lost nearly R6-million, they'd like another R192-million please, has to have been one of the best performances of the year. I see you made no provision for that amount in your Strategic Plan, so where's it going to come from?

On the other hand, no artist in this country wants to hear that 95% of any art entity budget goes to salaries, and just 5% to the arts, or new museum acquisitions. Yet this is the norm amongst these entities - the budget pays an army of staff, and the artists get nothing. Minister what on earth are you doing?

Then there is the Robben Island Museum, back down in the doldrums, a qualified report after having pulled up its socks when it was initially threatened with loosing its World Heritage Site status. Where's the million rand either not account for or undisclosed? The place is an island, it couldn't have gone far?!

The Windybrow theatre seems to be following suit. Why are you allowing this to happen? Why are you putting up with relatives being elected to Boards - such as at PACOFS where three members have been suspended - including the CEO? Budgets should be withheld in these cases - not increased without question!

Minister I suggest you take your eyes off the racist "Native Club" for a bit and make some small gesture towards doing the job you're paid to do.

The Arts and Culture Portfolio Committee has for years been absolutely unanimous in its wish to see the back of your Director General, Professor Itumaleng Mosala, so we're all delighted he's gone, but here's hoping you find someone who doesn't belittle and sideline the Members of Parliament in his or her rush to build their empire, doesn't have the staff toi-toying around their office, or indeed land even more of the Arts and Culture entities before SCOPA. I suggest
you climb down from your ivory tower this time and pay these matters some attention.

Vote for this budget? I don't think so.

The response by the Minister of Arts and Culture to Dianne Kohler-Barnard

The MINISTER OF ARTS AND CULTURE: Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I want to thank all the hon members who have participated in the debate. I also in particular want to thank parties who supported the debate. I am at a bit of a loss still about one particular party, the leading opposition party, which seems to have a schizophrenic attitude towards the Department of Arts and Culture. That is their problem and not ours.

I want to address a number of issues that were raised during the debate by the hon members, by way of responding to some of their remarks and also to undertake that some of the issues that they have raised will be followed up. There are, of course, the matters relating to heritage, especially the issue of geographical names, which raises such emotion. I think in response to a question on the matter last week, the President, more than aptly, explained the matter. I
don't want to try and improve on what he said on that day. What I think has to be underscored when we discuss this particular matter, is that this is not the overseas province of a country in Europe or Asia or America. [Applause.] This is South Africa. South Africa. This is Africa. We must not forget that.

We do not, at the same time, want to undermine the particular national experience of this part of Africa. We recognise that what we call South Africa is the outcome of the interaction of people from many parts of the world. That is given recognition in many ways by this department and by the government. As the President said, when we know that the name of a place is Xonkhwe, why do we insist on calling it King William's Town? There are not very many people who even know who that King William was.

What is important about this issue is that it is the subject of legislation and it is not something that I have made up or some bright idea that I got one day. I found that the law is there already and when that law was passed, with the exception of those parties that were not yet in Parliament at the time, everybody in Parliament supported that particular piece of legislation. It is not my law. It is the South African people's law. All that we are trying to do is to implement that law. There are, of course, divided competencies within that piece of legislation. Some competencies are those of local authorities, like those of ........ Some are provincial. Some are national. Regrettably, when the hon Van der Walt spoke, and she mentioned a number of areas that she was unhappy about, many of those are provincial competencies. I don't interfere
with what the provinces do and I hope they don't interfere with what we do, nor do we interfere with what the local governments do. Those questions perhaps are best raised at that level.

We are indeed disturbed when any dimension of South Africa's rich and colourful heritage, even if it is conflicting, are destroyed. When these matters do arise, as happened with this heritage piece or stone in Mpumalanga, we have instituted an investigation to get to the bottom of it. While the investigation continues, let us leave things there and let it be completed before we respond on the matter. Sometimes we jump to hasty conclusions and then we muddy the waters and that would not be very helpful.

I agree with Ma Mbombo that some of our community art centres are underperforming; some of them have closed and some of them are not functioning properly. This is a problem that has been with us now for some time and it is a consequence of the devolution of power down to local authorities in terms of management of community art centres. We have been in discussion with Salga and with the Minister of Provincial and Local Government to try and resolve this problem because many of the municipalities complained - and this is an unfunded
mandate - and therefore they don't actually have the funds in their budgets to run these community art centres. That leads to many of the problems raised by Ma Mbombo.

The drive to build libraries in the disadvantaged areas and especially in the rural areas, hopefully will pick up speed during the course of this year. We are very reliant on local and provincial governments for the implementation of that. I want to appeal, especially to the MECs here present, that we should please get on with this work, because as they can hear, the need for libraries in these areas is very pressing.

Equally on the issue of African languages in the schooling system, I think that is something that has to be addressed with a degree of urgency because, as people have said, to the extent that these languages are not taught and will thus be impoverished. It is also going to be a problem in terms of our communicating with our greater South African public out there.

I am pleased that the issue of facilities in rural areas have been raised as sharply as it has been because this is an area in which the legacy of the past still haunts us and we need to address this. Unless we do, we are going to leave our rural areas as some sort of wasteland that has very little in terms of facilities for the people who live there. I am also pleased about the
remarks relating to the issue of ..... and music. It is a matter of pride, as hon Van der Walt has said, that Solomon Linda's song is now being used in The Lion King. The regrettable aspect of the story of Mbube is: What has happened to it since it was not ................ I am certain, had it not been for the backing that this government gave to the lawsuit of the Linda family, they would not have earned a nickel, although that song has been used and reused and recited in many different ways in many different parts of the world. We assisted them because we thought it was our responsibility as a government to make sure they get what is due to them as a family.

There are many people who have to be thanked. Firstly, I want to thank my Deputy Minister, Ntombazana Botha, who leads this department with me. Our acting Director-General, Mr Victor Julius who has been our chief accounting officer since the departure of Prof Mosala at the end of March 2007; the Deputy DGs, the personnel of the Department of Arts and Culture who have worked very very hard to raise the profile of this department. I also want to thank the members of the executive with whom we work very closely, the heads of departments from
the various provinces. I also want to thank the people who work in my Ministry; beginning with my chief of staff, Freddy Mashamba and Ms Nomhle Kula administrative director and all the others who work directly under me. Last, but not least, Prof Keropetse Kgotsitsile, our national poet laureate who works as my advisor and whom I blame for all the mistakes I make. [Laughter.] There is one last issue that I want to touch on. The hon Kohler-Barnard, now for the third year running, has come to this House and spoke as if she is the tribune of the arts community in this country. There are quite a number of representatives of arts communities in the gallery. I wonder, how many of them she can claim to speak for. Thank you. [Applause.]

Labels: Department of Arts and Culture, Dianne Kohler-Barnard, Pallo Jordan