Trompies singer Eugene Mthethwa has paid off a long-standing South African Music Rights Organisation (Samro) debt.
The EFF member of parliament showed Sunday World a settlement agreement he said he and Samro entered into two years ago.
Mthethwa said that he settled the R120 000 debt, adding that it was a lie to suggest that he had defrauded Samro in the first place. He said the funds were doled out to his daughter in 2013, who was 19 years old at the time.
“This whole thing had been dragging for many years,” he said adding that he knows the people who are peddling the lies about him.
“Let me be clear, once and for all. When the money was dispatched by Samro, it was a pilot project that I had initiated for the organisation where I stated that we needed to get funds to take our black kids to school to learn about the music business, as it happened with our white counterparts, who are also Samro members,” said Mthethwa.
Mthethwa now sits on the parliamentary portfolio committee on sports, arts and culture, to which all government-funded arts organisations account via the Department of Arts, Sports and Culture.
Mthethwa charged this week his detractors were reviving an old story. He said in 2013 he approached Samro executives and board with a request to extend the bursary scheme to the children of black Samro members.
“This started as a pilot project as I initiated it, and at that time, there was my daughter and the daughter of my late brother, Isaac Mthethwa. When I asked to have both girls granted funding to study, I was told that only one of them would be eligible for funding, so one was chosen.
“Those who claim that I defrauded Samro were clutching at straws; hence, there was not even a case opened,” he said.
Mthethwa pointed out that the pilot failed because of the noise about him defrauding the organisation. He said Samro ended up suspending this membership and withholding his royalty payments as it investigated the allegations.
“Afterwards, Samro reached a settlement with me, however, when I asked that we issue a joint statement, that did not happen.”
The result was that Samro paid Mthethwa R160 000 while more than R71 000 was written off. From the documents Sunday World has seen, it appears no money changed hands between the artist and the agency. Instead, the withheld royalties were used.
“Mthethwa’s member statement shall be revised to reflect a nil balance on execution hereof such that future performing rights royalties earned will be duly paid out… ,” reads the agreement.
Mthethwa claimed he was being vilified because, as a member of the portfolio committee he was cleaning up the arts industry.
He said he wanted arts organisations such as Downtown Music Hub, South African Music Industry Council, Moshito Music Conference and the South African Roadies Association to account.
“I am coming after them as they should account,” he said, adding that “nothing will stop me from dealing with them”.
Samro spokesperson Brenda Sono said that the organisation was not going to comment.
