Lotteries board ordered to pay for Jazz
This weekend's Melodi international jazz festival in Johannesburg has been saved by an urgent Pretoria High Court order, forcing the National Lotteries Board to pay R3,75-million to the Jazz Foundation of South Africa.
Judge Lettie Molopa this week found that the Lotteries Board had "not been entirely honest" with the Jazz Foundation. Molopa not only granted judgment in favour of the Foundation, but also granted a costs order against the Board.
The Judge found that there was a valid agreement between the Board and the Foundation and that there were no grounds to cancel the agreement.
Jazz Foundation CEO Oupa Salemane told Sapa the last-minute ruling came as a great relief, as the non-profit organisation faced financial ruin. A negative finding could have caused serious damage to the image of South Africa in organising concerts with international superstars.
'I can only hope that sanity will prevail'
"This is the second time we were in court on the very same grounds and both results were the same. I do not think they will be so unreasonable to renege on their next payment. I can only hope that sanity will prevail and we will not be forced to go back to court again," he said.
The Lotteries Board in November 2006 awarded a R15 million grant to the Jazz Foundation to fund three music festivals, including this week's Melodi international festival and the Mogale Arts and Culture Festival, that was held in February.
Salemane said in court papers that the Board, however, for "spurious and unspecified reasons" failed to make the first payment and appeared to have made an internal decision to revisit the funding of festivals and to renege on its obligations.
This resulted in the foundation launching legal proceedings against the Lotteries Board. The first application was eventually settled, but the foundation only received R3 million for the Mogale festival.
Salemane accused the Board of raising "unmerited veiled and unfounded defamatory hearsay allegations of untoward conduct in an attempt to avoid payment of any of the amounts".
International jazz superstars, including Pharoah Sanders and Ramon Valle of Cuba, had already been contracted to appear at the Melodi concert at Emperors Palace this weekend. Various other contracts were also concluded and the foundation was forced to obtain a loan at high interest rates because of the Board's "surprising and unprofessional stance" to renege on their agreement for a second time, he added.
Salemane said he believed the Board had hoped that its audit of the Mogale festival would disclose irregularities, but the audit in fact revealed that the Jazz Foundation was a professional and transparent body, which frustrated the Board's attempts to legitimately repudiate their obligations.
He stressed that the Board's stance had the potential of not only ruining the foundation, but also of ruining South Africa's reputation in music industry and causing an incalculable loss to the community in terms of the foundation's cultural contribution.
The Jazz Foundation was represented by Lawley Shein Attorneys in Johannesburg. - Sapa
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_i...4518544C444538
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