About a week ago, artists called for the resignation of Minister Nathi Mthethwa.
They demanded that he resign by no later than 31 January and failing which, President Ramaphosa should replace him.
To show their anger, they launched a petition where they accused him of being incompetent, aloof and out of touch.
This petition saw Mthethwa apologising the next day.
But Daily Sun has learnt artists are divided on the issue.
This comes after the South African Music Independent Council came to Mthethwa’s defence and distanced itself from the call to fire him.
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The council’s spokesman, Stanley Khoza, said their name was unfortunately dragged into the ongoing calls for the minister to resign through an interview with their former president, Eugene Mthethwa.
“SAMIC would like to put it on record that as an organisation, we have not called for the resignation of Minister Nathi Mthethwa. Eugene Mthethwa was interviewed in his personal capacity as a cultural and creative activist. He is not the president of SAMIC as reflected on the Newsroom Africa interview.”
He said that the Freedom Park engagement between the minister and the cultural and creative industry practitioners was a good start
“We call on Freedom Park leadership, under the baton of one of the best CEOs in the creative sector imbokotho Jane Mufamadi, to implement the resolution of the engagement with Minister Mthethwa to call another meeting as soon as possible. We were encouraged by the minister’s remarks that he is not adverse to constructive criticism and welcomed all the positive inputs made in the engagements and would ensure his officials follow up on them and resolve some of the challenges creatives presented in that session,” said Stanley.
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He also called on the government to increase the budget allocated to the cultural and creative sector so the sector is not contained by limited budgets when other departments are allocated billions of rands to resolve their challenges. “Our industry has been on lockdown since 26 March 2020 and nothing short of a billion injected into this sector will assist in bringing relief to our practitioners,” he said.
Eugene Mthethwa said he stand by his statement."The truth is that I am still the President of SAMIC and I was never removed. When I did the interview I was not asked if I am representing SAMIC or commenting in my personal capacity. Nevertheless I still maintain that Minister Nathi Mthethwa must go, he has failed the industry and he has shown no interest. He has no understanding of the industry," said Eugene.
