WHEN ADJUDICATION BECOMES EXTORTION
Image: DSAC Logo (Source: DSAC)
MONDAY EDITION | UMRHABULO, POLICY & PUBLIC DISCOURSE
HOW CORRUPTION IS NORMALISED IN SOUTH AFRICA’S CULTURAL & CREATIVE INDUSTRIES
By Thami akaMbongo Manzana |
The Creative Passport
There is a disease quietly eating away at the Cultural and Creative Industries in South Africa — and many are too afraid, too exhausted, or too compromised to name it.
Let us be clear from the outset:
It is ILLEGAL for adjudication panel members, council members, government officials, or employees of public entities to demand payment, favours, percentages, or “gratitude” from funding beneficiaries.
Yet it happens. Repeatedly. Systemically. Brazenly.
And everyone knows.
Image: MGE Logo (Source: DSAC)
WHEN ADJUDICATION CROSSES INTO CRIME
Adjudication is meant to be a protected, confidential, and ethical process.
It exists to ensure fairness, transparency, and accountability in the allocation of public funds.
But somewhere along the line, adjudication started behaving like a side hustle.
Some panel members discuss projects outside official processes, in private spaces, social gatherings, phone calls, and WhatsApp messages.
They speak freely about applications, budgets, weaknesses, and outcomes — which is a direct violation of governance and ethics.
Worse still, some adjudicators go further:
They demand compensation from beneficiaries
They request fixed fees or percentages of awarded funding
They position themselves as “gatekeepers” for future approvals
This is not consultation.
This is extortion.
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Image: NAC Logo (Source: NAC)
WHEN COUNCIL MEMBERS ABUSE POWER
At institutions such as the National Arts Council (NAC) and similar bodies, council members are sometimes appointed as chairs of adjudication panels.
This position carries enormous responsibility — and enormous power.
But power without accountability becomes dangerous.
Some council members:
Discuss projects informally with applicants
Influence adjudication outcomes behind the scenes
Demand payments, favours, or future benefits
Hide behind intermediaries to avoid financial trails
They know what they are doing is wrong — which is why money is never paid directly to them.
The intention is simple:
Avoid being traced. Avoid being implicated.
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Image: NFVF Logo (Source: NFVF)
GOVERNMENT ENTITIES ARE NOT IMMUNE
This culture is not limited to arts councils.
It extends into:
Government departments
Public entities
Development agencies
Municipal cultural units
Officials misuse their positions, leveraging desperation, delaying approvals, and hinting that “things can move faster” — for a price.
This is how corruption survives:
Not through violence, but through quiet coercion.
Image: NHC Logo (Source: NHC)
DESPERATION IS THE FUEL
Let us not pretend we do not understand why practitioners comply.
Funding is scarce.
Opportunities are shrinking.
Careers, organisations, and livelihoods are at stake.
When survival is on the line, people do what they must.
But this does not make the system right.
It makes it predatory.
The adjudicators change.
The council members rotate.
The faces come and go.
But the industry remains trapped in the same cycle of fear and silence.
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Image: BASA Logo (Source: BASA)
THE REAL TRAGEDY: SILENCED TRUTH
Many practitioners have evidence:
Messages
Voice notes
Witnesses
Payment requests
Patterns of behaviour
But there is no safe space to speak.
Whistleblowers are punished.
Blacklisted
Marginalised
Threatened
Quietly excluded from future funding
This is why corruption thrives:
Because silence is enforced.
Image: PESP Logo (no copyright infringement is intended.)
WE NEED WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTION — NOW
The Cultural and Creative Industries cannot be captured by mafias, criminals, and gangsters.
There must be:
Independent reporting mechanisms
Legal protection for whistleblowers
Anonymous platforms for testimony
Oversight bodies free from political interference
Public money is not a private inheritance.
It belongs to the people.
A CALL TO READERS: YOUR VOICE MATTERS
We invite practitioners, organisations, administrators, and former panel members to share their experiences.
You may:
Comment anonymously
Withhold names and institutions
Protect your identity
Your story matters.
Your silence protects criminals.
This platform exists to challenge power — not to flatter it.
The Cultural and Creative Industries deserve integrity, not intimidation.
Transparency, not transactions.
Justice, not fear.
The question is no longer whether this is happening.
The question is: Who is brave enough to stop it?
But stopping it requires more than bravery — it requires collective honesty.
It requires those within the system to confront their own complicity.
It requires those outside the system to refuse to be intimidated into silence.
So we must ask further, more uncomfortable questions:
Who designs these systems, and who protects them when they fail?
How many complaints are buried quietly to preserve reputations rather than justice?
How often are “processes” used to exhaust complainants until they give up?
Who monitors the monitors, and who adjudicates the adjudicators?
At what point does institutional protection become institutional violence?
Why are whistleblowers treated as threats rather than as safeguards?
What happens when ethics exist only on paper, but power operates in practice?
And if everyone knows something is wrong, why does nothing change?
Most importantly:
What role do we play — as practitioners, citizens, audiences, and voters — in allowing such systems to continue?
If silence sustains the system, then participation becomes an act of resistance.
The question, then, is no longer only who is brave enough to stop it —
but who is willing to speak, to question, and to refuse the comfort of looking away.
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