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What’s up at the Department of Arts and Culture
The Department of Arts and Culture has been in the news recently, for all the wrong reasons! The Archival Platform was shocked to hear of National Archivist, Graham Dominy’s suspension in mid-September. Like many in the sector we had word of this news which was drawn to the attention of the public in a Sunday Independent article headlined, “misconduct charge a set-up, says archivist”.
This together with other recent headlines, “Xingwana has a new Chommee”, “Xingwana has her hands full”, “Xingwana in hot water again – for firing heritage council”, “Xingwana wields axe at corrupt officials”, “SAJBD clear up ‘anti-Semitic’ slur with Xingwana”, with and our own ongoing dissatisfaction with Xingwana’s seeming unwillingness to re-appoint the National Archives Council made us ask, what’s up with DAC?
On Sunday 31 October President Zuma reshuffled his cabinet replacing Lulu Xingwana with Paul Mashatile as Minster of Arts and Culture. We congratulate Minister Mashatile on his appointment, but wonder if he has any idea of the challenges that lie ahead as he tries to revive and reinvigorate a department that can only be described as being in a state of crisis. Yes, crisis is a strong word, but it’s an apt one to describe the state of affairs at the DAC. The picture that emerges through news reports, departmental reports, press releases, and their website certainly gives cause for alarm.
This article is not intended as an-depth assessment of the DAC. It aims rather to point to a few critical areas of concern and to ask what is at stake when the department mandated to protect and promote our national heritage is in such a state of disarray.
A number of senior staff members have been suspended and/or dismissed
Graham Dominy, the National Archivist and a senior colleague were suspended with immediate effect on 14 September. Dominy challenged his suspension, but it was withdrawn shortly before the matter was to go before the Labour Court and Dominy was reinstated. On 8 October Dominy was suspended for a second time and faces a disciplinary hearing this week. The charges against Dominy and his colleague relate to anonymous allegations into alleged irregularities in the procurement of a service provider in 2008. These were investigated by the DAC in 2009. Both Dr Dominy and his colleague were apparently cleared by the internal investigation. Dominy demanded a formal response to the charges in 2009. This was not forthcoming until September 2010 when he was suspended on the day he was scheduled to be interviewed for the post of Deputy Director General: Archives, Libraries and Languages.
For the record, there is no suspicion of fraudulent activity or financial mismanagement or impropriety on the part of either Dominy or his colleague. Why, one wonders, or in whose interest, if the allegations have already been investigated, has such draconian action been taken against them.
In July 2010, a DAC Media Release headed “Progress in rooting out corruption at the Department of Arts and Culture” announced that a number of officials including Mr Tale Motsepe, Mr Mzukisi Madlavu, Mr Sydney Selepe. Ms Thandi Mdlela, Dr Fikile Dilika, Ms Lindi Ndebele-Koka, Mr Sipho Ndlovu and eight provincial co-ordinators of the Investing in Culture Programme had been dismissed for misconduct and/or serious misconduct. This action follows in the wake of irregularities noted in internal audit reports and extensive forensic investigations by Gobodo Forensic Services and PriceWaterhouseCoopers, in respect of the 2010 World Cup, Cultural Development and Investing in Culture programmes and projects of the DAC.
A significant number of senior posts are vacant or filled by officials in an acting capacity
According to a press release issued by the DAC on 3 November 2010, the Portfolio Committee has expressed concern that 26% of the poss in the DAC are unfilled and that too many people were in acting positions. Minster Mashatile has promised to address this problem.
Information below is derived from the DAC website, accessed on 3 November 2010.
The most senior official in the DAC is the Director General. The DAC is divided into four branches, each headed by a Deputy Director General. Three of the Deputy Director General positions are filled by officials in acting capacities. The Deputy Director General of the fourth branch is also acting Director General – effectively taking on the roles and responsibilities of two senior officials.
The Arts, Culture, Promotional Development branch is headed by an Acting Deputy Director General. There are three Chief Directorates in this branch. Two of these positions are vacant. The third Chief Director is currently Acting Deputy Director General of this branch and of another branch – effectively taking on the roles and responsibilities of three senior officials!
The Cultural Heritage and Preservation branch is headed by an Acting Deputy Director General, who is also the Chief Director - effectively taking on the roles and responsibilities of two senior officials. The Chief Director of the National Archives of South Africa has been suspended and an Acting Chief Director appointed from within the institution, to this position.
The Cultural Development and International Relations branch is headed by an Acting Director General – who is also the Chief Director and Acting Deputy Director General of the Arts, Culture, Promotional Development branch, as mentioned previously. Two of the three Chief Director positions in this department are vacant.
The Human Resources Management and Governance branch is headed by a Deputy Director General who is also Acting Director General, as mentioned previously. There are four Chief Directorates in this branch. One of these is positions is vacant and one is filled by an Acting Chief Director.
In summary: There are 17 senior posts. 6 of these are filled by officials in acting positions. 5 posts are vacant. 3 officials hold more than one position. 3 positions are filled by permanently appointed officials who hold only one post.
The DAC’s vision is to develop and preserve South African culture to ensure social cohesion and nation-building. How can this ever be achieved without adequate capacity?
Councils of important statutory organisations are dysfunctional
The term of office of the National Archives Advisory Council came to an end in 2007. No new appointments have been made and the NAAC remains inactive.
The National Heritage Council, inaugurated by the Minister on 4 June 2010, was dissolved four months later after an “administrative oversight” in the apporintment process. Members of the council have been invited to reapply for their positions. No new appointments have been made, to date.
Minster Xingwana has offended and or estranged certain constituencies
Minister Xingwana’s inappropriate response to the “Innovative Women” which included photographs of lesbian women has been branded as homophobic and unconstitutional.
Minister Xingwana’s allegedly accused Sipho Sithole of acting as a “front for white people” and was “fronting for the Jewish woman” and told him that the DAC would never work with his company again. Sithole is taking legal action against Xingwana for the alleged racist remark. The South African Jewish Board of deputies, who view all allegations of anti-Semitic behaviour seriously met with Xingwana and her advisors to discuss the allegations. The SAJBD stated, after the meeting that Xingwana had stressed that she reaffirmed the government’s “policy of zero tolerance against anti-Semitism and all forms of racism and bigotry”.
What is at stake?
Notwithstanding the fact that arts, culture and heritage fall within the area of concurrent national and provincial legislative competence, the Minister and Department of Arts and Culture are responsible for:
• Formulating national policy;
• Monitoring and evaluating the implementation of national policy;
• Establishing appropriate legal and fiscal frameworks
• Overseeing the management of national heritage resources in accordance with national policies;
• Coordinating national institutions, agencies and structures;
• Funding national structures and allocating resources;
• Liaising with international and regional governments regarding issues of national significance and;
• Liaising with provincial governments to ensure equitable, efficient and effective delivery of heritage services
None of this is possible without a broad vision, effective leadership and strong management skills. How can the DAC hope to achieve its vision in the absence of strong leadership in the ministry, the department and its associated institutions? As citizens we expect and trust government to perform its duties in a way that affirms our constitutional rights. What is at stake when the national ministry and department are rendered ineffective, or comes under suspicion, is our national heritage and governments broader social cohesion imperative.
We wish Minister Mashatile strength as he faces the challenges that lie ahead. He will have our full support, but it is our right, and our responsibility as practitioners and citizens of a democratic state to speak out; to give credit when and where it is due, and to voice our concerns in times of crisis.
Jo-Anne Duggan
Comments
A BLACK XMAS FOR THE ARTS IN MZANSI
The administration of the arts in South Africa is akin to an old theatre production, which is constantly recycled to agree with the times! Often original members of the cast would have fallen out with the producer or whoever in charge and been summarily dismissed. This axe-wielding mentality in the arts stifles creative thinking and robs the industry of the best actors on stage.
You will then meet with insults in the press and other platforms screaming, “Back by popular demand” or “For a limited season only, catch this award-winning production” and so on. What this tells me is that ideas have flown out the window and I am thus enticed to pay for second-hand merchandise, in the currency of a new!
Writes: Edwin Sipho Rihlamvu
Let us cast our eyes a decade back and remember what pain and frustration the then leadership of the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology (DACST) with malevolence inflicted pain on this fragile industry by suspending the majority of the then management of the National Arts Council (NAC).
The unsuspecting public were fed crumps of the truth: “evidence of serious misconduct, financial mismanagement and poor controls” were allegations trumped up and circulated in the media with much diligence. I was saying to a friend that if service delivery was as efficient as government’s media machinery, then South Africa would be a thousand-fold better than it is today. It is unfortunate that we are always chopping wood in the wrong forest!
The then CEO of the NAC, Doreen Nteta was thus put out of the way during “forensic audits”, in order to allow for her contract to expire and then miraculously cleared of all her alleged transgressions! Those who were patient enough to have stayed the tenure of that protractedly boring opera were grudgingly reinstated; and then frustrated with the view to seeing them go. Prophets of gloom we in town and did their work well! Nteta committed a cardinal suicide: she allowed principle to preside over political expediency!
Throughout that entire tussle, artists were bradawl and drilled for patience as “the entire campaign was in the interest of the arts in the country”. The tenure of this “patience” was never fully explained but in real terms it meant that government would then administer grants and affairs of the NAC, a less competent and submissive “acting” token administration installed and the immediate interests of artists ignored!
Thus artists became worse-off than before: many missed important festivals and other artistic engagements as grants were not released on time while others who were closer to the powers-that-be gained handsomely!
A steep decline in the production of new work was experienced. Artists began to recycle stale work, packaged it as new and appealed to all and sundry to come and consume that trash. They couldn’t be faulted, for they were hungry and desperate. This they had to endure for the next four years or so while government was “rooting the NAC of wayward elements”!
Now, exactly a decade after the above charade, South Africa awoke to screaming headlines in the media and popular arts news networks that the Minister of Arts and Culture Lulu Xingwana had dismissed a number of senior officials at her department. These, according to the department’s media machinery (titled: Progress in rooting out corruption at the Department of Arts and Culture – 29 July 2010), were implicated on corruption and misconduct charges.
A closer look at this allegedly “corrupt bunch” would reveal that they have survived at least three departmental political administrations respectively. In the cases of Sydney Selepe, Tale Motsepe and Lindi Ndebele-Koka for instance, one cannot help but wonder at their sudden metamorphosis from being anchors of arts development advocacy in the country to being corrupt.
These individuals had earned their reputations as astute campaigners of clean administration in their disparate influences in the artistic kingdom! Furthermore, they are not token appointees – they rose through the ranks to senior heights on merit, armed with dedication to serve the arts with distinction – they had a lot to loose by behaving awkwardly.
Patricia De Lille will bear me testimony that during her sustained campaign to reopen investigations into the arms deal, a “reputable” forensic audit company was brought in to expediently declare that all was above board and that any need to further pursue the matter would be expensively futile. A recommendation was then tabled in parliament to dissolve the matter.
It was commendable that the public accounts committee did not swallow and insisted on investigating – their decision was vindicated when the UK declared evidence that indeed corrupt transactions did in fact take place. Lesson: forensic audit companies of impeccable titles may not necessarily be above reproach in the execution of their work.
With the political ancestry to defer on so-called forensic audit company’s recommendations as a basis to dismiss officials, in this instance out of the way, we can therefore discern the situation much more soberly and make intelligent assumptions. The blanket decision to dismiss these officials does not inform the public whether they are so incorrigibly corrupt that there would not have been room for rehabilitation – referenced by the infamous travel-gate scandal!
This entire account fails to locate the Director-General (DG), who is the accounting officer to the Minister in a correct focus. I honestly fail to understand why the department does not pronounce on sanctions, if any, that have been meted out to its DG as a consequence of lack of proper oversight. Secondly, the Minister as a political head of the department is far removed from the administration that she would not have been privy and ultimately “shocked to find allegations of serious irregularities and possible acts of fraud and corruption on the part of officials”. Unless of course, if the Minister was on a witch-hunt!
Edward Tsumele of the Sowetan reported on the story when it broke on 30 July 2010. He should be credited for attempting to solicit comment from the affected people before going to press but should be faulted for failing to run a follow-up on the initial story. This oversight smack of poor journalism, which then robs the public of accurate information upon which to formulate sound opinion.
In the meanwhile, the Department of Arts and Culture would be faced with several acting positions, at the higher echelons of its hierarchy, while the wrangling continues. What is suspect though, is the validity of the allegations that resulted in the dismissal of these officials. I do suspect a serious political fall-out, which landed itself to the wholesome guillotine of these individuals on a sacrificial altar.
My heart goes out to Dr Fikile Dilika, who has consistently turned down lucrative offers to join the private sector in her fields of discipline and resolved instead to stay on and contribute at the DAC in whatever little way she could. Profiled individually, one would establish that despite damning allegations that have been levelled against them, these officials, singularly and collectively did not count of their positions as occupations, but as pedestals from which the artistic community could carousal development and leverage empowerment.
Ladies and gentlemen, “Back by popular demand” or “For a limited season, catch this award-winning production” …
“The department will leave no stone unturned to uproot corruption in order to ensure that arts practitioners and the public in general are the beneficiaries of the department’s programmes,” Xingwana said in a statement.
This statement exhumes harrowing memories of what artists went through, exactly a decade ago, when the department was turning stone after stone in a quest to root out corruption at the NAC – which never existed! For now it would be convenient, most convenient of me to coil and retreat into my shell and look forward to: A Black XMAS for the Arts in Mzansi!