Two of the country’s main arts funders ended the last financial year sitting on more than R337 million in unspent grant money.
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) had R231.2 million unspent. The National Arts Council (NAC) had R106.3 million.
The figures are in the Auditor-General’s presentation to Parliament’s NCOP Select Committee on Education, Sciences and Creative Industries on Tuesday.
The Auditor-General singled out the two bodies. “We are highlighting these two because the unspent conditional grants were significant. This can lead to delayed service delivery and reduced achievement of planned objectives, while also indicating weaknesses in planning and project implementation,” the AG told committee.
The NFVF funds filmmakers and productions. The NAC funds artists and arts organisations. Both administer rounds of the Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme (PESP) for the creative sector.
It is not yet clear which grants the money belongs to. The Auditor-General also flagged both bodies for other problems.
The NAC had material non-compliance on the quality of its financial statements. It submitted statements with material misstatements, which were corrected only during the audit. It also had material compliance findings on consequence management for fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
The NFVF had material findings on its performance report. The Auditor-General found its performance targets were “inaccurately described or inconsistently presented”.
Both received unqualified audit opinions with findings, unchanged from the previous year.
The Auditor-General said the Sport, Arts and Culture portfolio’s problems were rooted in slow response by leadership, ineffective consequence management and critical vacancies.
The two bodies did not get to respond in Parliament committee chairperson Makhi Feni shut down the meeting after Minister Gayton McKenzie, Deputy Minister Peace Mabe and Director-General Cynthia Khumalo all failed to attend.
