How many of the lottery’s Arts, Culture and National Heritage Distribution Agency (ACNHDA) members does it take to change a light bulb? We don’t know. They can’t get a quorum to decide. How long does it take them to decide to change the light bulb? A year, if you’re lucky. Who will change the light bulb when they eventually decide? What does it matter? The electricity would have been cut off by then.
Last year the lottery produced 115 new millionaires — 115 people who can now afford to fill their petrol tanks. In the same period, 220 beneficiaries — less than double the number of millionaires — were allocated a total of R170,69-million by the ACNHDA at an average of R776 000 each.
Sport had the same amount of funding to allocate as ACNHDA — R224,68-million — but while Sport managed to allocate 94% of its funding, its counterpart only distributed 74% of the available money. This meant that about R54-million — more than the annual budget of the National Arts Council for the same period — was rolled over into the next financial year.
The Charities Distribution Agency had R140-million more than Sport and the ACNHDA to allocate, yet it too managed to distribute 94% of its funding to 1 325 beneficiaries, six times more than those allocated funding by the ACNHDA.
Again, this confirms a simple point that is beaten to death in this column. It is not that there is no money for the arts. Rather, it is the official mechanisms charged with the distribution of this funding that are the fundamental problem. They appear to have not the slightest sense of urgency or respect for those who are supposed to benefit from the funding they control.
Last year the average payment made to the eight members of the Charities Distribution Agency for attending meetings was R67 000. For Sport and Recreation, the seven members received an average of R24 000, while the eight members of the ACNHDA were paid an average of R13 000 for attending meetings. Assuming they were being paid similar amounts for attending meetings, the ACNHDA members appeared to have spent five times less time than their Charities counterparts and nearly two times less than their Sport counterparts in allocating funding.
Quite frankly, given the needs within the sector and the availability of funding, this is utterly unacceptable. Why should so many cultural projects and so many artists be prejudiced simply because the Charities Distribution Agency cannot get its act together?
At a public forum last year, a senior representative of the National Lotteries Board indicated that the ACNHDA met once a month and on average dealt with 50 applications at each meeting. If one’s project happened to be number 601 or higher, it could take more than a year for an applicant to receive a response. If the ACNHDA failed to have a quorum for any of its meetings — as has been the case recently — it could take even longer.
Four extremely busy people represent arts and culture on the ACNHDA and four equally busy people represent the environment. All have to make decisions about arts and culture, even though only four of them may be knowledgeable about the sector.
The lottery exists for the sake of the good causes that it is supposed to support, not for itself or for the members of its distribution agencies. For the sake of efficiency and the integrity of the decisions, there is a strong case for separating Arts and Culture from National Heritage. The administrative systems of the lottery’s ACNHDA clearly need to be overhauled as a matter of urgency to drastically shorten the decision-making process.
Perhaps the ACNHDA needs to be given a maximum of three months to deal with all the applications received by the given deadline. Even if this means that its members are paid handsomely to do so, at least then the potential beneficiaries would know the outcomes of the applications timeously, and would be able to plan accordingly.
Will someone turn on the lights at the lottery?