The SABC has said it will not comment on the failed “Thank You SABC Concert” which took place on the weekend as it was not involved in organising it.

The 40 000-seater Orlando Stadium was barely a quarter full on Saturday, despite event promoters saying they hoped it would at least be half full, prompting the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) to call for an investigation into the finances used to organise it.

The DA’s spokesperson, Phumzile van Damme, said the party would submit parliamentary questions to find out how much was spent on the concert.

“A absolute waste of public money [sic],” van Damme said.

SABC: We’re not involved

“Why should we be responding to that?” SABC spokesperson, Kaizer Kganyago, said to htxt.africa, when asked for comment.

“This was not an SABC event, it was by artists. Therefore, why should we be commenting on it?” Kganyago said, referring to the public broadcaster denying it was footing the bill for the concert, as “erroneously” stated in the press release announcing the concert.

Kganyago added that the SABC had nothing to do with the concert, other than being the official media partner for the event.

“If they want to investigate those artists, it’s fine, they’ve got nothing to do with us. The concert was honouring the SABC and I don’t know why we should get involved,” he said.

Kganyago questioned why the ACDP would want to investigate the SABC if it wasn’t behind the concert adding that they should rather approach the event organisers.

“At the end of the day, whatever happened, happened, if you want answers about the event, go through the organisers,” he concluded.

Concert was not backed by Department of Arts and Culture

htxt.africa spoke to Department of Arts and Culture spokesperson, Lisa Combrinck, who said the department did not back the concert as the application process was completed too late for them to get involved.

We were instead referred to another official within the department who we were told would be in a better position to speak to us, but could not get through to them on their mobile.

The number we found for the company said to have organised the concert, Morris Roda Productions, did not exist. The company doesn’t have any social media pages or a website either.