After a long silence, the North West Annual Mahika-Mahikeng Cultural Music Festival will light up the province with 3 days of music, arts, culture and more from 17th-19th March 2023. The Department of Arts, Culture, Sports and Recreation in the North West has appointed Showtime Entertainment as the event manager after deciding to postpone the event from last year in order to ensure compliance with supply management laws, regulations and practices as far as the awarding of the tender is concerned.
“Last year we had to take a policy decision to postpone the hosting of this programme in December due to what we had reported at the time and we are happy to announce that we had re-advertised the tender which we have successfully awarded.
We ran a very clean bid opening process and compliance check process which were done by a bid Specifi¬cation committee. The evaluation process was also very thorough,” stated the HOD of the Department of Arts, Culture, Sports and Recreation Itumeleng Mogorosi. The Mahika-Mahikeng program's budget has altered over time. It began with an R30 million budget for one financial year and has since begun to decline.
According to the department, they have budgeted R10, 5 million for this year which will be spread out over the medium-term budget. It is without a doubt that the festival has grown in leaps. With small, medium and macro businesses having benefitted from providing accommodation and other related services to visitors and music fanatics during the festival period, thus contributing immensely to the economy of the province.
“We want to use this event to circulation to maximise the creation of work opportunities, circulation of possible income to those who will be lining up to either render business services or as independent business people may require to come in and set up a stall. We will also be working with the economic development as a part of marketing and promoting The North West Province.”
We will communicate extensively because events of this magnitude have got a huge impact on the economy and the livelihood of the citizens of the province.” said Mogorosi.
Starting on March 13th, businesses will display their crafts and set up free stalls in the parking lot of the Mahikeng Convention Centre. The parade will make the festival a bit different because there will only be one on the day of the event and none will take place throughout Mahikeng.
“We will have an event at Kgotla - Barolong Borra Tshidi on the 17th in the morning and the parade will then start from Kgotla - Barolong Borra Tshidi to the Convention Centre to kick start the festival,” concluded the Chief Director of the Department of Arts, Culture, Sports and Recreation in North West, Thabo Mabe.
