Look, I don’t want to be accused of being a regionalist, but what is it about our Gauteng cousins that makes them get all the cash? Well, most of it anyway. No wonder they drive bigger cars, wear clothes with cooler labels and eat out at above-average restaurants. And I’m only referring to the artists.
In every National Arts Council report to date, Gauteng is listed as the province that receives the most funding. In fact, in every reported year, this one province gets nearly the same as all the other provinces put together. In the period from 1998 to 2000, Gauteng got 49% of the allocations, while the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal took home 17% each, with only the Eastern Cape, out of the remaining six provinces, getting more than 5% of the funds. In 2000/01, Gauteng got 51% and, in subsequent years, 47% (2001/02), 46% (2002/03) and 50% (2003/04). In contrast, the Eastern Cape’s share varied between 6% and 8%, the Free State got 2% to 5%, Limpopo received 1% to 5% and North West, less than 5%. Mpumalanga and the Northern Cape have rarely managed to obtain more than 1% of the council’s funds since its conception in 1998.
In the past financial year, Business and Arts South Africa allocated 34,48% of its funds to Gauteng projects, exactly double that allocated to projects in the Western Cape (17,24%). The Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal got 10,35%, while the Free State, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and the North West all got 1,72%. The Northern Cape got nothing.
These figures are generally consistent with the proportions of corporate social investment (CSI) distributed by the private sector in 2003, as reported in the CSI Handbook published by Trialogue. Gauteng gets 39% of the CSI spend, with the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal each getting 14%. The Eastern Cape receives 8% and the rest of the provinces get between 4% and 6%. In that year, about R127-million was spent on arts and culture from CSI budgets (5% of total CSI spend) and, if the above percentages hold true for this sector, then Gauteng would have received more than R50-million of this total.
The allocations by the relevant distribution agency of the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund reflects a similar trend, with Gauteng allocated 33% of the total funds available for arts, culture and heritage in 2003/04. KwaZulu-Natal was next with 17%, Western Cape got 15%, Eastern Cape was on the receiving end of 12%, the Free State and Northern Cape were granted 7%, Limpopo received 4%, North West got 3% and Mpumalanga only 1%.
At its recent grant-making meeting, the Arts and Culture Trust allocated its full amount for theatre to the Market Theatre in Gauteng. As mentioned before in this column, the Department of Arts and Culture — post-1994 — supports three theatres in Gauteng, one in each the Free State, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape, with the poorer provinces again losing out on a share of national public resources.
So what do these trends suggest? That Gauteng-based agencies are biased in favour of Gauteng-based projects? That those making the decisions are more familiar with Gauteng projects and artists than others? That there are generally at least double the number of worthy projects in Gauteng than anywhere else? That Gauteng artists are better at completing application forms?
If anything, these funding patterns, still biased in favour of the most wealthy urban province, reflect three things. First, the reactive nature of the funding agencies, in that they primarily respond to applications rather than take the initiative to correct historical imbalances in the distribution of skills, resources and infrastructure. Second, for all the talk and bluster about transformation, we’ve done exceedingly well at the most superficial level of ensuring that the demographics within the sector are correct, but little to grapple with the structural causes and symptoms of inequity. And third, it reflects an absence of vision and leadership among those with the authority, the resources and the capacity to change things.
Now that we have generally replaced white people with black people at the trough of public funds, can we move on to real transformation in pursuit of the White Paper’s principles of redress, equity, access and human rights?