The Recording Industry of South Africa (RiSA), the organiser of the South African Music Awards (Sama), is disappointed after being dumped by KwaZulu-Natal.
In a statement, RiSA said it is not pleased with the eleventh-hour decision by the department of economic development, tourism and environmental affairs to withdraw from Sama29.
“We have a three-year contract with the department and will be consulting with our contractual partners to find out what led to this decision and carve a way forward” RiSA said in a statement on Wednesday.
“As such, we will advise in due course what the next steps for Sama29 will be.”
Conduit for looting
The organisers also stated that the awards, which have been in operation for 29 uninterrupted years, have been described as a conduit for looting.
“This is an assertion that we as RiSA strongly rebuke. It is problematic that an institution of great importance to the pulse of our cultural economy has been violated for cheap politicking.
“What has been lost in all of the resultant noise are the economic benefits of hosting a show of this magnitude for any city or province.
“The Sama is not a superfluous party, any such assertion flies in the face of the contribution made by the Sama to the Mzansi golden economy.”
The awards benefit the creative sector and ignite a number of other economies including tourism, hospitality, retail, transportation and the informal sector.
Job opportunities
They were set to create over 150 new job opportunities and more than 100 musicians and practitioners would have performed across the Sama29 programme.
This includes the nominee’s announcement, regional and national activations, public viewing area, non-broadcast awards, as well as a live broadcast show.
“As it stands, the Sama alone was in the process of confirming up to 350 rooms per night across various hotel groups between 12 and 20 November 2023.
“These hotel groups would have further benefitted from providing accommodation to the estimated 3 500 to 4 000 South African music supporter businesses who would have visited the province from across the country, the continent, and the world.
In addition to a provincial sponsorship which was not sufficient to cover all the production, event and promotional needs, the Sama still had to solicit and rely on the generosity of commercial sponsors in organising this proudly South African annual event.
The statement further reads that contrary to spurious allegations, the conversation with the City of eThekwini had been on infrastructure and logistics support and did not include any financial contribution.
