The Mercury
The annual traditional Reed Dance Festival draws more than 40 000 people to King Goodwill Zwelithini’s Enyokeni Palace. Picture: Gcina Ndwalane
Durban – After working like a dog, a person wants more than just being tossed the odd “bone” – at least that’s what KwaZulu-Natal MPL Sipho Nkosi thinks – especially when you are in a portfolio that should come with lots of free tickets.
In the legislature on Tuesday, the MPL, who is a member of the Arts and Culture portfiolio committee, accused department officials of hogging freebies to the best music shows, saying they should be shared with the politicians.
MPLs felt a bit like dogs, he said. They did all the work chasing the buck, only to be pulled off and chased away from the spoils.
“You (pointing at the department officials) are given these tickets, but you only share them with your friends and forget about us,” he said.
Nkosi made the remarks after the department’s corporate strategy manager, Ravi Govender, had delivered a report that said the department had allocated R2.6 million this financial year to support music events at Hazelmere, Inanda and Midmar Dam as well as the KZN African Film Festival and the Umgababa Youth Festival.
MPLs, said Nkosi, needed to go to these events to perform their “oversight role”.
“We do all the hard work here in the parliament, but when it is time for relaxation we are sidelined, which is not right. People take their families to Hazelmere to party, but when we get there we are blocked,” he said.
MPLs were only granted free entrance to the Reed Dance festival in Nongoma in Zululand, “and that’s only because it takes place in a rural area”.
“When you are given 30 tickets half of them should be given to us. Each and every portfolio committee member must get a ticket.”
The Mercury
