Petition to the Mpumalanga Department of Culture, Sport and Recreation
To: Mr. Makhukhu Mampuru – Director General
Email: dg@mpg.gov.za
Mr. Ntando Sibande - Chief Financial Officer
Email: sibanden@mpg.gov.za
Adv. Lomeus Saayman - Chief Director (Legal Advisory Services)
Email: lomeus@mpg.gov.za

We have noted that the Mpumalanga Department of Culture, Sport and Recreation is hosting the 2021 Mpumalanga Annual Cultural Experience Festival without involving the artists from the Mpumalanga Province.

The mission of the Mpumalanga Department of Culture, Sport and Recreation is “To promote social cohesion and nation building through culture, sport and information service to the people of Mpumalanga”
The key objectives of the department is to ” To develop and promote living culture, cultural villages, indigenous technologies, film and video industry, arts industry, marginalized languages, literature and religious programs”
Community program is to “Promote provincially marginalised languages namely isiNdebele and isiSwati and establishment of their Terminology in different field of education through the Provincial Language Committee”

We the artists of Mpumalanga especially in the Nkangala District Municipality call upon all artists and citizens in the Province to boycott and ensure that the Mpumalanga Annual Cultural Experience Festival be halted until the majority (90%) of the artists in the festival are from Mpumalanga.

We call upon all the artists who have left our home Mpumalanga to seek greener pastures outside because there was abuse, sidelining, propaganda and nepotism by the following:
Mr. Shaka Mkhwanazi - Manager at Department of Culture, Sport & Recreation
Mr. Johannes Msomi – Cultural and Creative Industries Federation of South Africa (CCIFSA)

and we also encourage those artist who are still here at home to fight the corruption that is caused by the two above mentioned crooks in our Province to unit and boycott the multimillion rand #culturalexperience that prioritizing celebrities from outside the province.

The Mpumalanga Department of Culture, Sports and Recreation (DCSR) must understand that CCFISA remains an umbrella body that represents artists and their mandate is as follows:
Mobilize and organize all art and cultural entities which exist for the sole purpose of advancing the art and culture generally and empowering the artists and creative workers in particular;
Create and establish appropriate and meaningful platforms of art and cultural expression in a manner that sustains the industry and preserves our heritage;
Robustly employ democratic principles that ensure fair participation of bona fide members in the affairs of CCIFSA and defeats disastrous divisions;
Encourage creativity by ensuring that artist, producers and managers together benefit equitably from their product;
Monitor and guide artist who choose to collaborate with other artist the world over;
Act as a fair interim regulator of the arts and cultural industry.

An urgent call to the DCRS is therefore made to urgently convene Arts, Culture and Creative Imbizo where artists and cultural creatives will engage the department on issues facing the sector and decide on impecable solutions taking the industry forward. The role of CCIFSA and the DCRS should be outlined and relevant democratically delegated leadership be launched to implement resolutions of the Imbizo.

We believe that localisation will create a more inclusive economy. The reconstruction of South Africa’s economy could be achieved through localisation and local procurement. The event must create job opportunities to local people who are Youth, Women, Military Veterans and people with disabilities. It is essential to accelerate socio-economic transformation and implementation of the empowerment and participation of women, youth and persons with disabilities

We will defend the little we are left with to share amongst deserving Artists/Creative Arts practitioners.

#CulturalExperienceMustFall
#Ayilile!!