MACUFE 2026 Chronicles: 24 Media Houses to Be Paid by “Donation”, With SLAs to Be Issued Post-Event

Staff Reporter

Bloemfontein – The 2026 edition of the Mangaung African Cultural Festival (MACUFE) continues to prove how simple procurement matters can be messed up when arrogance is met with arrogance.

MACUFE’s death, burial and unveiling by politicians

This comes after the Department of Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation (SACR), in a media statement, said it had partnered with 24 local media houses and two national media houses for advertising.

According to sources, local media houses were to receive R70,000 each for advertising.

“Initially, we were promised R1.1 million for 7 radio stations only, we have a meeting with Vincent Khetha and suddenly but we were told we would get R70,000.

“Now that the event is done and we delivered, we are told about the donation and Auditor-General and it’s not Khetha who had a meeting with us.

Each station was to get R150 000 and we submitted all our advertising logs showing how we were to promote Macufe.”

Another media practitioner said event during MaNtombela’s tenure they got donations and no attachment to it.

A text purportedly sent by Barry Swanepoel from SACR appears to confirm the arrangement.

“Good morning,

I hope you are well.

The Department is currently busy with a donation payment process to 24 x Free State Community Media Institutions. This includes community radio stations and media houses. The donation payments to Free State Community Media Institutions takes time, as there are many compliance documents that are required by the Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA).

In addition to the documents that you have already provided, and the internal payment documents we provided, the Department also had to generate 24 x Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that must be signed by our HOD first, and thereafter by your good selves. In this time, please check that all your compliance documents and banking detail is in order to ensure a speedy payment process and as little as possible frustration.

Currently, HOD will be signing the 24 x SLAs from tomorrow onward and once yours is signed, we will share it with you.

Kind regards,

Barry Swanepoel”

If each local media house indeed receives R70,000, that would total R1.68 million, which itself raises a red flag on two fronts.

For SABC station one Outside Broadcast is R380 000 yet local media get R70 000.

We will ask the Auditor-General about this apparent post-event circumvention and why the department is making payments as “donations” when service providers have already been appointed and part of their role includes media-related services.

In other news: The Department of Human Settlements is the only department that has regressed, according to the Auditor-General’s report.

This is the same department that is forever transferring staff forcefully and depleted its budget in 5 months but for cameras or microphones they are number 1 but dismal at doing its mandate.

We took a short left and busted Silver and Dark City hostels, Shambles.

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