North West Event to be launched in Gauteng – community is angry. 

The Department of Arts and Culture in the North West in planning to go ahead  with the Mahika Mahikeng media Launch in Sandton. The Department have defended the decision by Mahika Mahikeng organisers to do a media launch of this North West Spectacular Cultural Event in Gauteng – disregarding the outrage it sparked in the province. Many residents including North West Media are up in arms with the idea of launching a North West event in Gauteng. Tshepo Ramotswatlhaba wrote on Facebook:”Matlakala a Yana a kese digere ko KZN 😉 that’s y lebatho ba North West barekelwa dikariki tsa ditonki”. 

Diphale Black:” We are not taken serious wanted to fight for this disrespect”. 

Morake Maki:”Yah ke lenyatso shem North West ya telwa”. 

In statement, the department said it has noted the concerns from the North West community around the media launch that is scheduled to take place in Johannesburg on March 1, 2023.  

“It is therefore important for the Department to provide context and clarity regarding our communications roll out and the purpose of the media launch for Mahika Mahikeng 2023. 

The purpose of the media launch is to brief the broader media community around the plans for Mahika Mahikeng 2023 organised by Mega Works, the service provider appointed by the Department for three years. This is an important milestone as it provides a platform to promote the event nationally and create awareness about the festival, with the intention to encourage people from all over the country to attend this event. 

This media launch will be held in Johannesburg where majority of media houses are based. Different media houses from the North West Province have been invited to attend this media briefing. We have had an overwhelming response from the North West journalists who have shown keen interest to attend. There will be a huge representation of North West journalists who will be provided with transport. 

The launch is aimed at giving the media the taste of the North West. We will also have North West artists performing at the launch. 

Attracting people from all over the country will have significant economic impact for the local communities, and it is a great opportunity to promote tourism into the province, and to Mahikeng specifically. It will create a benefit to the hospitality industry as there will be an influx of people into the province. 

It will also give the North West as a province an opportunity to profile our arts and culture to the rest of the nation. 

We would further like to reiterate that engagements with communities are very important, it is for this reason that this campaign kicked off with an engagement with concerned business community, people from the arts and media held in Mafikeng on 8th February 2023. 

The second leg, which is the media launch in Johannesburg focuses on creating national awareness with media. Together with the service provider we have planned media road shows across the country to create awareness and drive traffic to the province. The third and the biggest media launch will take place in Mahikeng on the 08 March. There will be other activities in the province leading up to the main event. 

We encourage the Citizens of North West to be patriotic and continue to embrace platforms created by government that benefit the community,” read the statement.