Minister Mthethwa must reveal his plans to support arts and culture sector during adjusted Level 4 lockdown

Issued by Tsepo Mhlongo MP – DA Shadow Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture
30 Jun 2021 in News

Please find attached soundbite by Tsepo Mhlongo MP.

The DA calls on the Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture, Nathi Mthethwa, to reveal his plans to assist the arts and culture sectors during the next two weeks of the adjusted Level 4 lockdown period, which shut down all cinemas, theatres, casinos, nightclubs, exhibition spaces at conference centres, museums, libraries, archives, galleries, restaurants, taverns and shebeens with immediate effect.

In essence, the ANC government has once again shut down many of the platforms that artists use to earn a living without any indication from government on how it will support them.

Government is punishing South Africans for its own dismal failures with the vaccine roll-out, while those in the arts, culture and heritage sectors are still struggling to gain access to relief funding. These lockdown measures will be detrimental to an already devastated and suffering sector.

Every day South Africa is losing immense talent to unemployment queues, because the ANC government has proven itself not only incapable of any meaningful management of the economic and health impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, but the widespread corruption has showed that they never cared about South Africans to begin with.

It is time Minister Mthethwa started earning his exorbitant salary. South African artists need real and urgent intervention.

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