When the National Arts Council’s new 18-member council was inducted in January 2021, four members were linked to organisations that were awarded funding from the R300-million for arts and culture, from the Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme , that the arts council had been tasked with disbursing.
But the NAC, in various online meetings with creatives, has said that the applications were adjudicated and approved by an independent expert panel between November and December, therefore the incumbent council would have had no influence on the process. DM168 asked Sithole for details about his project, whether he had been paid yet and whether he had disclosed to the council that he was a beneficiary of the PESP. Sithole’s response was: “Write on my project and leave me out of it.”
In a 2020 Facebook post, Sithole said that he started working at Prasa in 2014. The following year, former public protector Thuli Madonsela published her report on the railway, he said. In the report, Madonsela flagged a contract that was issued six years before Sithole was at Prasa. “I cancelled further payments of this contract after the Public Protector had issued her report and when I became aware of its history.
Although many council members come from the arts sector, artists have repeatedly said in online meetings that the NAC needs to be more transparent about members who have been approved for PESP funding. Artists have also said in various online meetings that council members receiving funding from the NAC constitutes a conflict of interest.