April Fools joke or true? Muvhango has allegedly fired five of their lead actors, some of whom have been with the show since inception.
Sindi Dlathu (Thandaza), Dingaan Mokebe (James), Gabriel Temudzani (Azwindini), Maumela Mahuwa (Susan), and Buhle Samuels (Matshediso) are said to have been axed after they "stopped production in the Muvhango SABC studios on Tuesday when they arrived on set and refused to shoot unless the SABC re-evaluated their contracts" according to a statement released on the show's Facebook page.
The statement continues "They claimed that they were not happy with their salaries since they are the ones who pulled viewers to the show. Various negotiations with the show's producers did not yield any results. Morishe Matlejoane, Muvhango's producer and Tessa Made, the creative director, tried to get the actors to at least work and make sure that the show goes on but the actors would not budge. Matters got into a spin when the five started trying to influence other actors to join their industrial action".
Controversy has surrounded the soapie for a while now with actors not being paid for work on a few occasions.
The statement says the show's retired executive producer Duma Ndlovu was called in to ease the situation but only made matters worse when he demanded the actors go back to work or else. The actors are said to then have exchanged "nasty" words with Ndlovu who then called the SABC COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng who is out of the country on business. The statement says Motsoeneng advised Word Of Mouth to follow the Generations route and fire the actors.
SABC's Kaizer Kganyago laughed when the sunTeam contacted him and said he didn't know anything about the statement. When asked if it could be an April Fool's joke, he said it was likely but he can't confirm.
Amanda Ngudle, the show's PR person did not answer several calls made to verify if this was an April Fool's joke or not!
What do you think?
