THE Pretoria State Theatre is being closed for the rest of the 2000/2001 financial year due to “gross financial management”, Minister of Arts and Culture Ben Ngubane told journalists on Thursday. The theatre’s 477 employees will be retrenched in the process. Ngubane said the balance of the government grant of R33 million, which currently stands at R12,5 million, will be made available for retrenchment packages on condition that the state receives “unconditional ownership” of the theatre’s assets. Ngubane said the financial defecit is due to a bad investment of R18,2 million by the board of the State Theatre through a company known as Scott Asset Managers, currently being investigated by police.