That was a week that was. Not quite up there with winning the bid for the 2010 Soccer World Cup and unleashing the vuvuzela on a bunch of uptight Fifa suits, but one of those New South African weeks nevertheless.
First, there was Eugene Terre’Blanche who went home on a black horse, in a black costume, to a black crowd. Prison had obviously been a sobering experience for the Generaal, since he managed to stay on his horse longer than Jani Allan’s had been impaled on his torch blue eyes.
Then there was the Mother City that got to show that it could organise traffic jams and crowds of rainbow spectators even on a Saturday, using only the Olympic torch, never mind the Olympics itself. And finally, the Springteas — half-national animal and half-national flower — lit the torch for rugby, rather than for a Beau Brummel nudist colony.
Oh, and the new Harry Potter movie was released, thankful that, unlike the last time, it wasn’t up against the latest Leon Schuster movie that would beat it into second place, confirming that local audiences prefer the moronic to the magical.
It was also the week in which the parliamentary portfolio committee on arts and culture held public hearings on the 2004/05 budget and ”to assess whether a public spending on arts and culture is effectively and efficiently utilised.”
The Department of Arts and Culture (DAC) now boasts a budget of more than R1-billion, reflecting an increase of about 92% since 2002/03 when it was still the poor cousin of science and technology.
While much of this increase may be explained by large capital transfers to Freedom Park (R180-million this year), capital expenditure at other heritage institutions (an additional R175-million) and funds for marking 10 years of democracy, the substantial budget of the department does elevate it from its historical Cinderella status.
If the DAC’s budget and that of science and technology were combined this year, arts and culture would account for 47% of the total against 53% for science and technology, as opposed to the 41%/59% split of 2000/01. Contrary to popular perception (within the cultural sector anyway), the 2004/05 budget for arts and culture is nearly four times larger than the sport and recreation budget, and is similar to the budgets of the departments of labour and agriculture that traditionally would have been considered far more important than culture.
Whether the increased public funding for the sector is ”effectively and efficiently utilised”, is moot. The struggle to get the National Arts Council (NAC) to distribute the funding that it has is well documented, but that is no reason why its current budget of R44,6-million to support creative production and distribution in theatre, music, dance, literature and craft in the country is 76% less than the salary budget of the department (R78,7-million). While the NAC’s budget and those of major heritage and performing arts institutions increase by an inflation-consistent 6% to 8% this year, the DAC’s remuneration bill increases by 14,5%.
The average annual salary of the 400 DAC staff members sits at R197 000, while the subsidies paid to three orchestras remains at exactly the R3-million each as for last year, begging the question whether artists are less deserving of increases than the bureaucrats who reproduce themselves like rabbits.
I’m convinced that substantially more value would be added to the arts and culture sector — and probably to the economy and quality of life in our country — if the figures were reversed, in other words, if R78-million were used to support employment in the arts, and R44-million went to government officials. After all, employing as many people as possible in government departments is surely a rather narrow interpretation of ”the people shall govern”.
In their presentation to the portfolio committee, the National Film and Video Foundation indicated that it would need a budget of more than eight times the one allocated to it by the department to realise its business plan. Which raises interesting questions about how the DAC actually arrives at its annual allocations if not in consultation with its various institutions.
Perhaps it is time for those who do the actual work of arts and culture to do the budgeting.