Minister Raymond Kazembe
Bongani Ndlovu, Showbiz Correspondent
MINISTER of Sport, Arts and Recreation Raymond Kazembe has said artistes should form organisations that serve their interests instead of working individually.
He was in Bulawayo on a two-day arts familiarisation tour on which he met artistes and art administrators.
Minister Kazembe described his tour as an eye-opener and next week will be ironing out some policy issues that they had overlooked.
During a meeting with artistes at the Bulawayo Polytechnic’s School of Hospitality and Tourism on Wednesday, Minister Kazembe challenged artistes to form associations to represent their interests instead of flooding Government with individual complaints.
“The tragedy that we have is people want their issues to be dealt with individually. I’d kindly advise artistes to form an association. It’s easier to form an association, be affiliated to the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe and it becomes easier to channel your issues through a formal structure,” he said.
Minister Kazembe said his Ministry will engage the Ministry of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services on payment to artistes who had raised concern that the national broadcaster, Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation was not paying them on time for their contributions.
“As much as we appreciate that the issue is under the Ministry of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services we have a vested interest because the people who are affected belong to our ministry. So we’ll lobby on your behalf to ensure that the payments are increased and made on time,” said Minister Kazembe.
His tour started on Tuesday ending on the following day. He visited Amakhosi Cultural Centre, Mzilikazi Arts and Craft Centre, Umkhathi Theatre Works based at Salukazi Beer Garden in Njube and the National Art Gallery of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo.
He revealed that part of his 100 days target under President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration was to launch the country’s cultural policy.
“I’m one person who’s very much given to results and I’ll make sure that these policies are launched. In fact most of the work is done and they’re almost ready for launching,” he said.
He encouraged dialogue between Government and artistes for the growth of the arts fraternity.
“We should have frequent dialogues like this with artistes and I’ll be coming back after a 100 days I promise. We shall have this gathering after 100 days and you be able to evaluate me,” said Minister Kazembe.
During the discussion, artistes brought up issues to do with non payment for their shows by ZBCtv.