Cultural and Creatives Industries Federation of South Africa (CCIFSA) Joburg says it has not suspended chairperson Arthur Mafokate but had to replace him temporarily because he was too busy.
The organisation stated that even though Mafokate had been served with a letter informing him that it had appointed Faith Maseko as interim chairperson to take over his duties with immediate effect in his absence, they had not placed him on suspension.
This comes after CCIFSA Gauteng chairperson Sidney Dlamini confirmed to Sunday World that the Johannesburg regional arm of the organisation had suspended Mafokate and informed him of this, stating that this was done due to the music legend being missing in action.
The ka**r hitmaker, who was appointed in June, allegedly missed CCIFSA activities and meetings, according to the letter.
Speaking to Sunday World on Friday, CCIFSA Joburg regional deputy secretary Thembinkosi Khumalo said Dlamini should stay away from meddling in the organization’s internal affairs.
“Dlamini had a meeting with our spokesperson three days ago when they had a meeting to update him on the planned march that is supposed to happen, so now we are surprised to hear that we have suspended our chairperson, hence we have said that it is propaganda because we see that something is flying under the carpet from certain individuals” Khumalo said.
He said the organisation had reached out to Mafokate through a letter because he was not reachable on WhatsApp, which is its preferred mode of communication.
“CCIFSA’s work is voluntary, so we had a little bit of frustration out of not understanding that Mr Mafokate was tied up with some work that he was doing. So just like a country when the president is not there, we need somebody, hence we needed an interim chairperson, where we will all agree that we will have someone to make decisions in absentia,” he said.
“We were not getting any response from where he was supposed to communicate, so basically he never responded to us to say I am busy or I am not available, so there was literally no response. We felt that we are being delayed on making certain decisions, hence we had to write that letter,” he said.
Khumalo said Mafokate came back to them a day after the letter was sent to him to ask that he be given time to conclude his private work and he would be back in action on Monday.
However, this was not communicated to Dlamini, who reiterated that he was informed that Mafokate was suspended, according to the knowledge at his disposal.
“I am sticking to my original comment. He was suspended, and that is according to the letter that they sent to me,” he said.
Mafokate did not reply to questions sent to him.
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