In the past seven months, three of the top management at the Department of Arts and Culture have left. One of three deputy directors general, Thandiwe January-Mclean, is now the country’s ambassador to Portugal. Itumeleng Letsebe, the chief financial officer of the department, left in April. A few weeks ago, the chief operations officer, Jomo Kwadi, had his farewell. The thing is, has anyone noticed?
Three questions come to mind. Firstly, why are top management leaving the department? Is it the sinking-ship syndrome, or was it simply a case of serving time in the public sector before better opportunities nodded in their direction? The second question is: Did they have any impact when they were there and, if so, does anyone notice any difference now that they’ve left? Which begs the third question. Are we, as taxpayers, really getting our money’s worth from the staff — especially the senior management — of the arts department?
This question also cropped up last Saturday night, when SAfm’s Cultural Exchange featured a discussion on the latest developments with regard to the National Arts Council (NAC). This was in response to criticism levelled against the department — in this column and elsewhere — about the lack of transparency around the appointment of a new board.
In response to these charges, and contrary to an initial media statement by the department declaring the process sufficiently transparent, it placed an advert in the Sunday Times, three weeks ago, in which it published the full list of nominees for the first time — nearly a month after a shortlist had already been interviewed in public — as well as the names of the interviewing panel and the dates of their various meetings. The advert also called on the public to submit written objections to any of the nominees, as required by the law, by October 21.
The department declined the invitation to participate in the SAfm discussion. It also declined to participate in the same programme last year, when Minister of Arts and Culture Pallo Jordan fired the previous board of the NAC.
Now the department has a ”communications unit”, headed by a chief director whose job, one imagines, is to communicate. The head of the communications unit sometimes complains about ”the media” giving the department a hard time, yet, when ”the media” invites the arts department to present its side of the story, it refuses the opportunity. There is little proactive information that emanates from the department, little communication with the public generally and with the arts and culture sector in particular, so that we know very little about what the department actually does, or what it has achieved, or what its staff do.
At today’s rates, a chief director sets taxpayers back by R553 754, nearly half of what the president earns. It is also roughly equivalent of what it costs an NGO, such as the Centre for Creative Arts (CCA), in Durban to employ its complement of four full-time staff.
The CCA does outstanding work. It organises four festivals a year, the most recent being the International Poetry Festival, which I was fortunate to attend, albeit briefly. If the CCA did not exist, there would be a huge hole, not just in the cultural life of Durban, but within the country, since it is unique in hosting a dance festival, a film festival and two literary festivals every year.
Despite recent attacks on the agendas of foreign-donor funding for NGOs from the Presidency — will political parties in this country please tell us, the electorate, who their donors are so we know whose agendas are driving them — the CCA wouldn’t have much impact without international support.
If the government is so worried about foreign funding, then maybe it should do more to support local NGOs, particularly the ones that do excellent work. And a good start to finding the funding would be to rid the cultural bureaucracy of mediocre management who consume huge amounts of local resources with little, if any, impact.