The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) has confirmed something that raises a fundamental question about the way public money is being administered, it appointed African Global Skills Academy (AGSA) to manage key parts of PESP6 without requiring the company to prove that it had any film or television expertise.
That is not an inference but the NFVF said so.
An independent regulator, the Quality Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO), has separately confirmed that AGSA’s accreditations do not certify competence outside the fields for which it is accredited.
The two answers expose a striking gap.
AGSA is being used in the administration of a programme exclusively serving film and television productions.
Yet film and television expertise was not a requirement for the company appointed to manage its programme administration and due-diligence processes.
AGSA is accredited by the QCTO as a private Skills Development Provider.
It has eight active accreditation numbers covering 18 occupational qualifications and one skills programme.
None relates to film production, television production, screenwriting, directing, producing, cinematography, post-production or broadcasting.
The QCTO was asked a simple question. Can accreditation in unrelated occupational fields demonstrate competence to perform programme management or assessment related functions in the film sector?
QCTO CEO Vijayen Naidoo’s answer clear,
AGSA’s accreditation “does not certify competence to perform functions outside that scope,”Naidoo said.
This publication also obtained AGSA’s accreditation record from the Culture, Arts, Tourism, Hospitality and Sport Sector Education and Training Authority (CATHSSETA).
The CATHSSETA record covers fields including craft production, conservation, hospitality, casino operations, tourism guiding, sport administration, hunting and lifeguarding.
Again, there is no film, television or broadcasting qualification in the record examined by this publication.
So the question becomes unavoidable.
Where, exactly, was the film and television expertise?
The NFVF was asked whether film or television experience, qualifications or accreditation formed part of the tender process that appointed AGSA as the PESP6 Programme Management Company under RFT12 2025-2026.
The answer was no. “The requirements were not for the film and television sector, but for project management,” said Busisiwe Hoho, the NFVF’s communication officer.
The publication asked the question again in more specific terms.
Was film or television experience, qualifications or accreditation a threshold requirement, mandatory requirement or weighted evaluation criterion?
The NFVF answered with one word:
“No.”
That answer is extraordinary given the nature of the programme.
PESP6 is not a generic government administration project. Its beneficiaries are film and television productions.
The company brought in to manage the programme therefore sits in the middle of a process involving applications, project information, budgets, due diligence and funding recommendations within a specialised industry.
Yet the tender did not require bidders to demonstrate expertise in that industry.
According to Hoho, the tender focused on “project management depth and expertise.”
She said that AGSA does not evaluate projects instead they support the administrative side of PESP and works from “a clear brief from Panel meetings resolutions on what they should look for.”
But that explanation creates another problem.
Because the NFVF has also confirmed that AGSA conducts due diligence on projects recommended by the Advisory Panels.
And due diligence is not simply photocopying documents. It involves checking information and determining whether what has been presented can be supported.
Hoho revealed said that AGSA’s accreditation status was never considered during the technical evaluation.
” accreditation status was not part of the evaluation criteria or tender requirements,” she said.
In other words, the organisation responsible for administering the programme did not have to demonstrate relevant industry accreditation.
And the NFVF says it did not score bidders on it.
She said that NFVF has never appointed a programme management company with film or television-sector expertise. This is because NFVF has allegedly never used any other PMC other than AGSA.
So this was not simply an isolated omission in PESP6.
According to the NFVF, film and television expertise has never been required of its programme-management company.
The NFVF says AGSA won because it had more than two decades of general project-management experience and came in line with budget.
Those are legitimate considerations in a procurement process.
But they do not answer the central question.
A company can have decades of experience managing projects without having any expertise in the industry in which those projects operate.
Managing a project is not the same thing as understanding the project.
That distinction matters enormously when public money is being distributed to specialised film and television productions.
According to Hoho, AGSA was the highest-scoring bidder.
Five companies submitted bids. Four were shortlisted. AGSA came out on top.
She said that the scoring was based on predetermined criteria contained in the Terms of Reference.
But the same NFVF has confirmed that those criteria did not require film or television experience, qualifications or accreditation.
That means AGSA could score highest without demonstrating the very sector-specific expertise one might expect when dealing with a fund dedicated entirely to that sector.
The NFVF’s own description of AGSA’s role makes the issue even more uncomfortable.
It says AGSA cannot approve, reject or disqualify applications. It says AGSA has no final decision-making power. It says those powers belong to the Advisory Panels and ultimately the Council.
According to the NFVF, AGSA’s role is to allocate applications to Advisory Panel members, manages evaluation spreadsheets and scores, monitors panel meetings and records application statuses.
It also conducts due diligence once a project has been recommended by a Panel.
It prepares Council meeting packs.
After Council makes its decision, AGSA drafts outcome letters to applicants.
The NFVF says those letters are reviewed by its PESP Project Manager and Acting CEO before they are released.
On paper, therefore, AGSA’s role is administrative and supportive.
But that is where accounts from beneficiaries raise another serious question.
Some beneficiaries who went through AGSA’s due-diligence process have complained directly to AGSA and the NFVF.
They allege that AGSA officials questioned them about their knowledge and history in the film industry.
They allege that officials challenged why they had applied for the maximum amount available in their funding tier.
They also allege that AGSA officials made recommendations about proposed staffing numbers and funding amounts.
These allegations have not been independently established by this publication and have been put to AGSA.
But if the allegations are accurate, they raise a basic question:
How can an organisation described by the NFVF as an administrative programme manager end up making or influencing judgments about an applicant’s industry experience, staffing requirements and funding needs?
Those are not meaningless clerical details.
They go directly to the substance of a funding application.
And that is precisely why the lack of sector-specific expertise becomes so important.
The NFVF has not provided a convincing answer to this contradiction. It continues to say AGSA works from a brief issued through Panel resolutions.
But it has not provided that brief to this publication. Nor has it explained how a general administrative mandate accounts for the specific questions and recommendations beneficiaries say AGSA officials made about their projects.
There is another unanswered question. If AGSA’s role is strictly administrative, why does its due-diligence process involve questioning applicants about their film-industry experience and challenging funding and staffing decisions?
If AGSA is expected to make no substantive judgment, what exactly is the purpose of those questions?
And if it is expected to make substantive judgments, where is the evidence that the people making them have the necessary film and television expertise?
The NFVF’s answers have therefore not closed the issue. They have sharpened it.
The more the NFVF explains the appointment, the clearer the contradiction becomes. AGSA was appointed through a competitive tender.
The NFVF says the process was fair. It says AGSA was the highest-scoring bidder.
It says predetermined criteria were followed. But it also confirms that those criteria did not require film or television expertise.
The regulator responsible for occupational accreditation says AGSA’s accreditation does not certify competence outside its accredited fields.
And the available accreditation records examined by this publication contain no film, television or broadcasting qualifications.
This leaves a disturbing question at the heart of PESP6.
Was the NFVF so focused on finding a company that could manage paperwork, spreadsheets, meetings and budgets that it failed to ask whether that company understood the very industry whose projects it was being brought in to scrutinise?
That is not a technicality. It goes to the design of the procurement itself.
The NFVF chose the criteria, they chose what bidders would be judged on, they chose not to require film and television expertise.
And now NFVF says AGSA won because it performed best against those criteria.
That may explain why AGSA won the tender.
It does not explain why the tender was designed that way in the first place. AGSA has been given an important role around a public funding programme for film and television.
Yet, based on the accreditation records examined by this publication and the NFVF’s own answers, the company was never required to demonstrate specialised competence in the sector.
That is the issue the NFVF must answer. And AGSA must answer it too.
This publication sent detailed questions to AGSA and its CEO, Ornica Mukhavhuli, more than a week ago.
The questions included AGSA’s film and television experience, the qualifications of officials involved in due diligence and the specific allegations made by beneficiaries. They did not respond.
For now, the record is stark and the more important question is whether the rules themselves were fit for purpose.
