The board of the Sithengi Film & TV Market has been informed that the new Minister of Arts and Culture, Lulu Xingwana, “has called for a moratorium on all spending pending a forensic investigation’. Sithengi will thus not yet be granted the R5m funding that DAC promised in December 2008 and will therefore suspend further activities until the funding comes through.
The board, which has been trying to resurrect Sithengi for the past two years, has fulfilled the requirements of both a New Funding Proposal and Audited Creditors Statement to ensure that all Sithengi debt will be paid-up from the proposed R5m and the remaining R1m will be used as seed funding for a Sithengi Market this year.
The Audited Creditors Statement was sent to the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) since the Sithengi funds were meant to be channelled through the NFVF.
