Botched festival wastes millions

The Tshwane metro flouted regulations and blew millions in taxpayers' money on the botched TribeOne festival, the Pretoria High Court heard yesterday.

The last-minute move by Tshwane to withdraw its urgent application to the court to declare invalid the cancellation of the festival by Rockstar4000 has been described as an attempt to cover up its breaching of the Municipal Finances Management Act.

The court file - which contained a copy of SMS correspondence between Rockstar4000's Sean Watson and deputy city manager Lindiwe Kwele - in which Kwele justified the contravention of the act - reportedly disappeared from the court on Tuesday.

The organisers had filed their replying affidavit with copies of the SMS correspondence the previous day.

In the affidavit, Rockstar4000 director Johannes Ferreira Louw said that when his company raised concerns about deviating from the requirements of the act, Kwele stated in an SMS: "Fact: Our justification for breaching MFMA by paying u guys all R25m was to ensure that artists are secured so I don't think EM [the mayor] will accept this excuse."

The metro spent R40-million on infrastructure and R25-million to secure artists for the Cullinan festival - including a R10-million non-refundable appearance fee paid to US rapper Nicki Minaj.

Louw said Tshwane got deviation approval only after concluding the deal, "therefore at the time of conclusion of the agreement the requirements of the act had not been complied with".

Judge Eben Jordan yesterday threw the application out of court, saying there was no basis on which to hear the matter.

Rockstar4000's lawyer, Rafik Bhana SC, earlier said the metro's attempt to withdraw the matter without his client's consent was "invalid".

The metro's Suriya Hassim SC disagreed.

Tshwane metro spokesman Selby Bokaba said regulation 36 of the act allowed for deviations.

Bokaba said the metro sought to withdraw its application after noting from Louw's affidavit that Rockstar4000 had cancelled the artists' bookings.

"It was a futile exercise for us to continue," he said.