South African actress Dawn Thandeka King is not a happy woman after the KZN Entertainment Awards organisers failed to pay her the amount they promised her after winning an award at the ceremony.
The former Uzalo actress, renowned for her role as MaNgcobo in the telenovela, has put the KZN Entertainment Awards event organisers on blast.
Dawn won an award for Best Actress in last year’s inaugural awards ceremony held at the Durban ICC. The award was supposed to be accompanied by a sum of R100 000, but the actress says she has had to fight to get her money, subsequently only receiving R20 000 of the prize money.
According to ILanga newspaper, the actress (who plays Thandiwe on her new Mzansi Magic telenovela, Diep City) has gotten several empty promises from the organisers who had promised her that payment would be made by March.
“This event was held in December last year, I was told that my payment would be made in March, but up until now I haven’t received anything. There was a situation that forced me to move from Durban to Gauteng, I explained to the organisers how much I need this money. They promised to make a deposit as soon as possible but that didn’t happen.,” Dawn was quoted as saying.
Last month the actress sadly lost her father and she says that the money would have been very helpful during the funeral arrangements, but even then she had not received a cent.
When I lost my father last month, I called one of the organisers Mhlonishwa Gumede and told him that I need the money. I even sent male messengers to speak to him as he would’ve taken me for granted because I am a woman but still he refused to pay me,” Dawn explained.
She further explained that Mhlo Gumede (husband to Zandi Khumalo and former Mabala Noise publicist) then promised to pay her a sum of R50 000 in order to cover her father’s funeral expenses, but only R20 000 was paid into her account.
“I resumed with the preparations as I thought I had an amount of R50 000 that’s waiting for me. I was shocked when I received only R20 000. I ended up owing some people. I told them to ask Mhlo for their money as he’s the one who promised to pay me my cash and urged me to continue with preparations,” she added.
The KZN Entertainment Awards were plagued with negativity even before the event itself last year. Radio personality Hulisani Ravele slammed the event when prize money was announced, question where all of these millions would come from.
“Who’s paying? IF it’s govt, this is a spit in the face of dilapidated schools, kids who cross dangerous rivers & walk for km’s to get to school, students who can’t afford tuition. I’m all for celebrating those who do well, the arts, mara please, this is wasteful expenditure,” Hulisani had asked in a tweet.
Source: www.Ghgossip.com
