SA’s Tribe One Fiasco: A R246m Reckoning

The legacy of the “Tribe One Dinokeng” music festival remains one of South Africa’s most notorious instances of wasteful expenditure.

Originally marketed as “Glastonbury in Africa” with headliners like Nicki Minaj, the 2014 event collapsed just days before opening. Despite millions in public investment, the festival sold only 318 tickets.

Forensic investigations eventually confirmed that the City of Tshwane, under then-mayor Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, bypassed financial protocols to fund the venture. Public money was used to build infrastructure on private land, while a R25-million grant was paid to a Sony-linked joint venture without oversight.

Councillor Siobhan Muller, who tracked the fallout for years, later questioned the transparency of the deal, asking: “Was it ever planned that the festival would take place as proposed?”

The city eventually approved a massive R246-million recovery order to claw back irregular spending from implicated officials. While legal battles continue, the human cost remains high for local communities whose promised jobs vanished.

Reflecting on the betrayal of public trust, technical lead Riaan Jacobs said: “The thing that hurt me the most was making people believe that their salvation had arrived.”

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