No award ceremony for MPSMA this year

Some of the winners of the awards. Photo: MPSMA website

Around this time of the year in the last two years, the people of Mpumalanga were voting for their favorite and talented people that do great work in music, acting, radio and television. There must be something in the water this year, the award ceremony of Mpumalanga Sunshine Media Awards has been cancelled, skipping what would have been their third annual this year. 

The reason to this decision according to the spokesperson, Mathutha Masimula, is " As the organizers of the Mpumalanga Sunshine Media Awards we found it to be great importance to take a break in 2017 so that we can set up an operating structure." He continued to say that they need a team that will comprise of different components in it to make the operations easy. 

"In the past two years we have been assessing and evaluating the sustainability of this initiative."

Masimula said that they have faced a number of challenges in the past two years, that include lack of financial support and sponsorship, complaints about the VIP area being poorly managed and nominees who found it hard to accept the results. It is no doubt that the award ceremony has a huge following and that some of the followers and fans may find it hard to accept the decision not to host this year. Masimula said that this decision was not an easy one to make. " Communicating it to the awards followers was even the most difficult step but for a better future event, it had to be done."

Many people were not impressed with the reception they received at the awards, and some of them took to the social networks to express their feelings and grievances.  Mathutha said that they have listened to these issues and and criticism and they believe that this will help the MPSMA to be grow. He promised a bigger and better award ceremony for 2018, " Our fans and followers can expect to experience a refreshed and a better organised ceremony with systems that will be communicated accordingly."