Limakatso Mahasa, MEC for Sports, Art, Culture and Recreation, said her department is committed to ensuring more local artists are featured at this year’s festival. Last year, more than 50% of performers were from the province.

“To be precise, out of 65 artists [at the main festival], 34 were our local artists in the Free State. The Macufe Homebrew programme, which is a developmental programme meant to provide participation opportunities exclusively for local artists, provided this opportunity to about 145 Free State artists,” said Mahasa.

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Mahasa said numerous shows at Macufe 2022 had a full house, showing a high level of public interest. The festival also provided economic opportunities.

“Macufe … must be a pinnacle point where every crafter, painter, thespian, author, literary scholar, musician, and poet will want to reach and be associated with.”

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Decisions taken by the department relating to Macufe 2022 are under investigation. Last year, the tender documents were confiscated by the Hawks to investigate any possible irregularities in awarding the tender to C-Squared.

The matter was previously brought before the Free State High Court when Judge Phillip Loubser ruled that the tender process was neither fair, equitable, nor competitive, contravening Section 217 of the Constitution.

Philani Nkwalase, Hawks spokesperson, said a criminal case had been opened after allegations were made during the court hearing that the tender was tainted by administrative irregularities, which “included deviating from the specifications in the tender invitation, without informing other applicants”.

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All this began when the department appointed the C-Squared Consumer Connectedness company, also known as C-Squared. The company’s total bid price to organise the event was R16 849 863. C-Squared’s involvement with Macufe goes far back. The company had previously been accused of milking the department’s budget with the festival.

In 2018, OFM News reported David van Vuuren, then DA spokesperson on Public Accounts and Finance, alleged C-Squared was paid at least R47 million for Macufe 2017, without the department benefitting from money collected at the gates or from sponsors.

Ben Mose, CEO of C-Squared, denied allegations that the festival “only [benefited] a few politically connected whilst the bulk of the income generated from the festival [went] towards [C-Squared]”. At the time of his statement, the festival had reached its 21st year and drew audiences totalling some 200 000.

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Recently, opposition parties have continued to ask questions about the tender procedures. “The new Destea MEC was once again outraged about the opposition’s vendetta against Macufe,” Armand Cloete, FF Plus MPL, said during the debate on Sports, Arts, and Culture in the Free State Legislature on Tuesday (4/4).

“His implication that we wish to deny residents of the province access to cultural opportunities is … ridiculous.”

Aucamp said “it appeared that the tender specifications changed during the tender process and that another company could have provided the festival for much less, if they were aware of the changes to the tender requirements.

“So, how convenient. According to the department, the requirements for Macufe changed – overnight, and one company met their new requirements.”

He said the department acted “maliciously” in awarding C-Squared the tender, without giving other companies the opportunity to amend their tenders. “Thankfully we have courts. And judgement in this regard was damning.”

Aucamp reminded members of the legislature that the judge found the awarding of the Macufe 2022 tender to C-Squared to be unlawful. “The service level agreement between the private entity and the Free State Department of Arts and Culture was struck down.”

OFM News