Gospel musician Sechaba Pali must pay back a R75 000 booking fee he received for his performance at Mangaung Cultural Festival (Macufe).
This is a demand made by organisers of the popular festival after Sechaba was thrown off stage after he chose to make a controversial speech instead of singing at Macufe on October 6.
According to a source present at the venue, Sechaba spoke about his pay and contractual issues, stunning revellers.
Sechaba, though, claimed the Macufe team forced him to perform live whereas they had initially agreed on a CD performance.
Sechaba said he would not pay back the fee because he made his appearance and went on stage to perform but was cut off while entertaining fans.
Before responding to Sunday World’s questions, he prayed: “Oh Lord please come and hear your child, she is asking me about an event that happened a while back and now I have to respond to her questions. She studied to be a life destroyer. Please help her to stop destroying the lives of people.
“I pray for her and others in her profession to stop making us explain ourselves because they are tarnishing our reputations.”
The Khetheyakho hitmaker claimed that the Macufe team could not stand his truth that he was being exploited and decided to call the police on him.
He said he only wanted to have fun and preach God’s word but was not granted the time to entertain and pray for his fans.
“They switched off my mic while I was still talking and that was very rude of them. I turned to the back and I saw the sound engineer raising his hands and walking away, then my manager told me that the police were waiting for me to get off stage. That was dramatic because I was just having a conversation with my fans,” he said.
Macufe organiser Sithembele Khala said they were prepared to take legal action against him.
By Boitumelo Kgobotlo
