As new minister Gayton McKenzie continues his quest to whip into shape the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture. On Wednesday he saw to the publication of the 2020/2021 list of Covid-19 beneficiaries, with 3,962 names and a total payout of over R72 million.
The exact amount paid out was a whopping R72,036,097.14 - with payments ranging between R2,000 and R75,000.
The majority of payments ranged between R10,000 and R20,000. In fact, there were more than 1,000 payments of exactly R10,000, and also over 1,000 amounts paid out of precisely R20,000.
There were 166 payments of exactly R53,000 and eight payments of R75,000 in a document of 90 pages. None of these payments were for sports stars.
Akani Simbine receives just one payment
One of South Africa’s best prospects of a medal at the Paris Olympics, 100m sprinter Akani Simbine received just a single payment of R20,000.
Some of the other SA sports people to receive payments of R20,000 were Kevin Lerena (boxing), Jake Roos (golf), Jaco Ahlers (golf), Thando Roto (athletics), Lyle Rowe (golf), Ruan de Vries (athletics), Ruswahl Samaai (athletics), Stacy Lee Bregman (golf), Merrick Bremner (golf), Bridgitte Hartley (canoeing) and Ashleigh Buhai (golf).
The link to the document was shared by the department on X, on Wednesday morning, but soon after, the site crashed - probably due to the sheer number of users attempting to access the list.
The department posted the link to the list with the caption: “Department of Sport, Arts and Culture has always cared for the creative sector. Below is the link to the Covid-19 Relief Beneficiaries 2020-2021 list. More lists are coming to cover other categories of funding since 2020 to date Beneficiaries:”
While the list could be viewed in a number of ways, with many on the list preferring to have their payments remain private, McKenzie said it was published in the interest of transparency.
The Patriotic Alliance leader, McKenzie said on X: “There are very good people on that list, well meaning people, @SportArtsCultur has been accused of not funding projects, for the sake of total transparency let’s see the good work people did, it not a shame list, some people got money because they say they help artist, let’s hear”
Earlier on Wednesday, McKenzie said he “would fire the corrupt!” as he promised to weed out corruption in his department.
This comes hot off the heels after he unceremoniously shut down the ‘super- fans’ free trips to support SA teams on Tuesday.