It must be investigated what procedure was followed by the department of arts and culture to grant actress Natasha Thahane funds to study abroad.
Thahane, who is the grand-daughter of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, disclosed at the weekend that she had received funds from the department to pay for her studies at the New York Film Academy, US in 2017.
This was after she called politician Baleka Mbete who was national assembly speaker and ANC chairperson at the time.
“I asked Mam’ Baleka [Mbete] and was like, ‘Mama, I need to go back to school. I’ve been accepted... I don’t know what I’m going to do, can I have funds? Please arrange something for me.’ She managed to speak to [the department of] arts and culture and they were able to help me,” she said on MacG’s Podcast & Chill.
This was met with outrage on social media as people slammed the display of “privilege” by the actress. Rightfully so, because if Thahane was not politically connected it would not have taken just a phone call to secure funding.
In her defence, Thahane took to Twitter to say she had initially applied for funding but there had been no response from the department. That is the story of many students who need funds to pursue higher education and some end up giving up on their dreams because of a lack of funds.
We are calling for a probe into the transaction, as a some of money from the public purse was used to pay for one person to study in the US. While thousands of local students, who also need money to study, are financially excluded by our universities every year.
They sadly do not have a hotline to a politician to make calls for them to get funds, that is unfair use of tax payer’s money and it screams corruption.
That Thahane had applied and did not get any response does not absolve Mbete of wrongdoing, it must still be investigated if she used her influence to get somebody close to her funding from the department.
What criteria was used to grant the actress the funds? Was she going to get it if Mbete had not gotten involved?
These are pertinent questions that the public deserves answers to, in the interest of transparency on how tax payers’ money is spent.
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