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Free State’s Macufe festival still in the balance as court reserves judgment on interdict

Free State’s Macufe festival still in the balance as court reserves judgment on interdict
Michelle Banda
By Michelle Banda
29 Sep 2022
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The return of one of South Africa’s largest emerging festivals, the Mangaung African Cultural Festival, is mired in controversy after C-Squared Consumer Connectedness won the R16.8m contract to organise this year’s event.

After a Covid-enforced hiatus, the Mangaung African Cultural Festival (Macufe) is scheduled to officially begin on 2 October 2022.

The festival is a flagship programme of the Free State Department of Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation.

This year marks the 24th anniversary of the festival, and — hopefully — 21 years of successful staging, having skipped 1999, 2020 and 2021. But the 2022 event hangs in the balance as the community of Mangaung awaits the outcome of a court interdict application against the festival.

An aggrieved bidder brought the interdict against Macufe 2022 after the company C-Squared Consumer Connectedness was awarded the R16,849,863 tender for the festival, saying it was an irregular appointment.

In court papers submitted before Judge Phillip Loubser in the Bloemfontein High Court, Mosa Likobo of DS Consortium alleges that non-compliance and material administrative irregularities occurred in the bidding process and awarding of the tender.



Likobo said in papers that “in awarding the tender the department deviated from the tender specifications which resulted in C-Squared gaining an unfair competitive advantage to the detriment of other bidders… The department skewed the entire bidding process to ensure that the tender was awarded to C-Squared.”

Likobo said the department had:


  • Published the call for bids at a late stage — the end of July to the beginning of August — rather than the usual April or May publication;

  • Changed the venues of where the Macufe event was to be held giving C-squared an unfair advantage; and

  • Required bidders to price their bids on the basis that the event management services were required at multiple venues spread across Bloemfontein without making this known to all bidders.


Likobo is one of the eight unsuccessful bidders.

Meanwhile, former DA spokesperson on public accounts and finance, David van Vuuren, says the controversy around Macufe is a longstanding issue.

“Unfortunately since its inception, Macufe has been a controversy in the Free State regarding the allocation of contracts, and many complaints have been received about non-payment by subcontractors of various entertainment artists. During my time in office, there were many contracts whereby tender processes weren’t followed and the vetting of contractors wasn’t done according to regulations. Due to the track record, the current allegations came as no surprise.”

Van Vuuren said the problem came about because there was no political will and no proper implementation of consequence management to root out corruption. 

“There were in some instances little to no monitoring of contracts that took place to ensure that there was value for money. Many of the road contracts over the past two decades-and-a-half have also been mired in controversy. Other notorious cases of corrupt contracts in the Free State include the asbestos and Vrede dairy projects.”

C-squared’s chequered history


This is not the first time C-squared has made headlines for the wrong reasons. In 2018, OFM News reported that Van Vuuren alleged C-Squared was paid at least R47-million in 2017 for the festival — without the Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation benefiting from money collected at the gates or from sponsors.

Daily Maverick was unable to obtain the opposing affidavit that fully sets out C-Squared’s argument in court, but the CEO of the company, Ben Moseme, denied all the allegations, stating that they were without merit. 

He told Daily Maverick that “C-Squared was lawfully awarded the tender after submitting a compliant bid.” He said that “2022 is the first year that C-Squared tendered to host Macufe. C-Squared does not have a long-time involvement in Macufe. The accusations levelled against C-Squared are without merit.

“C-Squared cannot comment or speculate as to why these accusations are made except to state that it is defamatory. We are also aware of the accusations that it was paid R47-million during 2017 for hosting Macufe. C-Squared did not host Macufe during 2017.”

The Free State Department of Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation has denied the allegations that the tender was awarded to C-Squared without following the necessary procedures.

The department’s Tankiso Zola told Daily Maverick that:

“We will be guided further by the court outcome regarding the correctness of the processes that were followed in awarding the contract. But as far as we know the context and tender awarding processes for Macufe are following the standard practice in the public sector as guided by the relevant legislation and prescripts. There is therefore no special context and process for Macufe as a project. Of the nine companies which submitted bids to tender, C-Squared was the lowest bidder in terms of price and was appointed accordingly.”

The Macufe festival runs over 10 days and showcases African arts, culture and various sporting disciplines with tickets for the events ranging from R100 to R350. It is one of the largest emerging festivals in Africa and grew from having an audience of 30,000 in 1997 to more than 140,000 in 2019.

According to the department, the festival has transformed into a socioeconomic catalyst, generating employment, tourist attractions and promoting arts and crafts for the host community.

However, community organisation the Mangaung Concerned Community (MCC) is not impressed. It has raised concerns about the event benefiting others and not just the host community. It has demanded that the service provider for Macufe 2022 is based in Mangaung and that it benefits the community at large.

“We have seen in the last few years that Macufe has been benefiting other people from other parts of the country other than people close to the event (which is the community of Mangaung). And as such we wrote a letter this year around May requesting an engagement with the department,” said MCC’s Themba Zweni in an interview with StepUP SA.



With the interdict judgment still reserved, as of Monday the festival may go ahead. Technically, the Macufe festival began on Sunday with the Macufe Cup which saw Royal AM dominating Kaizer Chiefs 4-2. Amakhosi were defeated on penalties following a draw in an encounter played at Free State Stadium in Bloemfontein. DM

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