R2K Statement in solidarity with Sibongile Mngoma and her team!
8 November 2021
We as the Right2Know Campaign stand in solidarity with Ms Sibongile Mngoma, Thami AkaMbongo, Brian Ntombela and creative artists seeking access to information from the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture in relation to a number of issues including the forensic report into the presidential stimulus employment programme funds. Not even forty-eight hours expired after the elections and the state is seen to be acting with impunity.
Last week, offices of the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture shut doors during working hours after five artists who were there to meet with Minister Nathi Mthethwa clashed with the police. The nation witnessed harrowing scenes as the police manhandled musician, Sibongile Mngoma ripping her blouse off and living her half-naked. We strongly condemn the manner in which the police have dealt with the protesting artists. It has now become the duty of every citizen to hold the police accountable.
We have kept careful watch on the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture since the inception of the lockdown. The beginning of artists plight made public sight when KZN artists made an effort to close off a public freeway. The Right2Know Campaign is an activist-led campaign and so we have a first-hand account of the impact this Covid_P19 pandemic has had on the lives of people in our country – Artists lives in this case. It takes an immense amount of courage to stand up for what is right in a time where irregularity and impunity have become the order of the day, in a time where there is mass unemployment and starvation. Politicians seem to find it difficult to understand what pain the artists are facing right now. There is a desperate need for state employees to become accountable.
It cannot be that civil servants close the doors of public offices when the very public seek to enquire or hold them accountable. The right to organise, protest and speak out is central to all community struggles for social justice. Instead of cracking down on dissent, the department should focus on addressing the problems that the artists have raised. The past week has proved that there is a need for the President to hold his Ministers and their staff to account. We as ordinary people now expect that President Cyril Ramaphosa acts responsibly and hold officials who close the doors of public offices during working hours to account. Holding people accountable is no security threat. The Department of Sports Arts and Culture was approached by 5 activists not thugs, thieves or robbers. Why were the doors closed without notice? The state must know well that these may not have been the only five people that want to access these offices. There is no shortage of a workforce in unemployed South Africa and so staff who do not want to work, especially government staff must be shown the door. The world should not stop because government employees refuse to perform their duties, duties that are being paid for by our taxes including that of the very artists they are shutting doors on.
Wasteful expenditure by the state to prevent the public from getting answers is unjustifiable. We have witnessed a woman abused in public, stripped of her clothes, her breasts touched by South African Police Service offices and her movement restricted. This abuse is happening in a country that has declared GBVF as a second pandemic. A country where women are violated every day. The South African Police Services appear to be conducting themselves as thugs, sheer arrogance and display of extreme power and impunity. Was this woman sexually harassed? We now call for intervention from the President of South Africa. The question that arises from what was witnessed at the Department of Sports, arts and culture on the 2nd November 2021 is: is the South African Police Services deployed to DSAC aware of section 17 of the constitution? Section 17 provides that “everyone has the right to peacefully and unarmed, to assemble, to demonstrate, to picket and present petitions”. The right to protest is a right afforded to all of us and provided for in the constitution. At no stage should the right to protest be hindered or disrespected by authority.
Minister Nathi Mthetwa has been seen campaigning for elections, attending funerals, driving in his fancy car etc. Why is this minister shirking the work within his portfolio? It is clear that the Minister cannot cope and he should be removed from this portfolio. If there is nothing to hide why is Sibongile Mngoma not getting answers. Why does it seem as though there is a concealment of some sort? The enquiries being made by Sibongile Mngoma and her colleagues are not selfish but rather for the Sector – the public who need to understand what is going on. They have the right to know. It takes selfless people to request accountability for an entire sector. A sector that appears to be in much pain. If the current Minister does not serve his office as per his mandate there is no need for him to be sitting in the office. Her concerns are justifiable as we have seen how the state has been looting from State coffers.
We are extremely concerned about the safety of the artists seeking answers from the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture. We call on President Ramaphosa to guarantee their safety.
Issued by Busi Mtabane, Right2Know Communicator, 8 November 2021
