Hazel Friedman
SOUTH AFRICAN art and culture can look forward to some of the whopping R68-million extra that has been allocated to art, culture, science and technology in the 1997/98 budget. But very little will reach arts and culture. This is due to an increase in the size of the administration budget and the growing number of staff needed for the restructuring of arts and culture countrywide.
Divided into six programmes, this year’s arts, culture, science and technology budget shows – on paper anyway – an improvement on the sums allocated in previous years. A total of R539,557-million was earmarked for 1996/97, compared with R607,619-million allocated for 1997/98. But much of that goes to science and technology, followed by R18,150-million for administration (compared with R15,286- million for 1996/97). And, surprisingly, the budget for arts and culture has decreased from R4,781-million for 1996/97 to R4,350-million for 1997/98.
But as the Director General of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology (Dacst), Roger Jardine, explains, arts and culture will also be funded on local and provincial levels. He adds that the national budget for arts and culture will be supplemented by initiatives co-ordinated by the department to extend the funding base for arts to the private sector. To this end, organisations such as Business and Art South Africa (Basa) were recently established to assist arts and culture. Dacst has allocated R2-million to get Basa off the ground.
In addition the National Arts Council (Nac), an independent statutory body established to provide arms-length funding for arts and culture, will receive approximately R11,5-million in its first year. In addition, the needs of the craft sector will be catered for primarily by the Department of Trade and Industry, while the Department of Environmental Affairs and Public Works will be pulled in to help fund cultural tourism.
In South Africa’s ailing community arts sector, 43 community art centres will receive R50-million as part of a revitalisation programme.
And while the figure for the South African film industry – R10,453-million – is larger than in 1994/95, it has not increased from last year. Included under the rubric of heritage and film is the heading “International Relations”. The government has allotted R4,182-million for the promotion of culture internationally.