Disabled SA artists criticise arts department for lack of true inclusivity

Some disabled artists and creatives across the Gauteng province believe Minister Gayton McKenzie’s leadership within the Sports Arts and Culture Department, lacks to withhold its advocacy for true inclusivity as it claims to often do.

Lelethu Mahambehlala, a performance poet who also lives with a disability, says the department does not cater for differently abled individuals like her.

Mahambehlala is a blind poet who also manages the organisation for which she performs.

She was among the scores of creatives who converged on the department’s offices in the city of Tshwane on Wednesday.

The group is outraged by what they call the systemic collapse of the arts governance, which they claim has been ongoing for months with no consideration.

The march attracted hundreds of artists across Gauteng, with some even performing as the march proceeded.

Mahambehlala claims that her main complaint with the department is that it sometimes demands differently abled persons like herself to follow process that are often impossible to do, citing an instance in which they all had to submit applications on hardcopy, without braille.

She is frustrated that the department is ignorant to some of their issues, as she would have preferred to do the said application at least online.

“I feel that they always saying they have programs that accommodate disabled people, however they don’t cater for that. They don’t allow artists with disabilities to take leadership in their own lives through their programs and funding. I don’t get the right tools to access their applications as a blind person leading my own organisation,” says Mahambehlala.

Olebile Mothelesi, one of the organisers of the Creative and Cultural Industries March(CCIM), claims that South Africa has been handed an arts industry minister that is not concerned about the well-being of its people.

“Yes, Minister Gayton McKenzie is likable and charismatic, but he is not a good performer in the space that he has been given to lead. He is actually just all talk, but no action. He is giving his support to sports, which we do not have a problem with, but he fails to support the creative sector,” says Mothelesi.

He also took a jab President Cyril Ramaphosa, claiming that he does not understand that the creative industry deals with breadwinners who want to provide for their families.

He said they want that the minister to treat their issues with the seriousness they deserve and come up with prompt solutions.

19-year-old local actor Thembelihle Nxumalo has accused the minister of purposefully ignoring their plight.

Nxumalo says they want the minister to explain why artists are being sidelined in the country.

“We don’t have props and uniform as artist and they don’t care about us. This minister doesn’t care about us. We therefore want to know why he is busy spending money meant for artists,” says Nxumalo.

Pretoria-born and raised comedian, Sipho Ntuli, affectionately known as School Boy, was also present at the march supporting the movement and says he believes their collective voices will hold weight and catch the minister’s attention.

School Boy believes it was significant for them to come together today as a group to express their concerns, claiming the department has been undercutting artists.

“We feel that the Arts and Culture Department is undermining us, and we come from all spheres of this province, so it’s important for us to raise our concerns because individually, they are unable to hear us. We want them to know that we are not satisfied with the administration,” says Ntuli.

He claims Minister Gayton McKenzie is picky about which creatives to fund, leaving some to fend for themselves.

He remembers a commitment made by the department to them during the COVID-19 lockdown period to provide relief funds, which he says they are yet to receive.

The group is denouncing claimed degradation of financing transparency, unchecked misuse of discretionary power, and mishandling and exclusion of artists from some of the department’s programs, among other things.

They refused to handover their memorandum of demands to the department’s director, Sibusiso Tsanyane, demanding that they want to engage the minister directly.

Written by: Odirile Rabalao