‘WE WANT OUR MONEY’

MBABANE – Drama at fashion and brands competition. 

Winners, who participated in the 2020 edition of the ‘Fashion, Brand and Model Style’ awards, have been left disgruntled after the organiser of the competition went silent with their prizes.

The competition took place on December 13 at the Theatre Club in Mbabane, where over 50 emaSwati attended. 

According to one of the winners, who took home the prize of ‘Best Female Fashion’ model, she was told by the organiser that her category was worth E3 000, which she was only paid E500 through Mobile Money on December 21.

accept

She narrated that further in the conversation about the prizes, the organiser asked her if she would accept E300 as airtime.

“I told him to sell the airtime instead so that he would pay me with the money,” said Ngwenya. 

Another participant in the competition named Warsage shared with this publication that there were banners displaying the sponsors, with some being mentioned on the stage as to how much they gave to the event. 

“They sent E500 to three of us and further promised to share the scoreboards, which they said would be made available through MTN Eswatini, which provided the voting platforms,” he said. 

Warsage said they would sometimes get updates on how they had fared with the votes, which he thought was showing transparency by the organiser. 

Spent

“Some of us have spent so much money voting only for him not to answer our calls,” he added. 

In addition to that, it is worth noting that this publication was made aware that each vote initially cost E2 on top of the many sponsors that were at the event. 

“Some of us even made it to 3 000 votes on the last day of the competition,” he concluded. 

Celumusa Malinga, who won third prize at the competition, which had a prize reservation for E1 000, said he did not receive anything and was told he had gambled with the money he had participated with.

He revealed that he had spent close to E600 for the competition for his fashion brand, ‘Brand Warming’.

Alert

The event organiser, Thabo Motsa, said he communicated timely with the winners to alert them that they had not made the expected income from gate takings due to COVID-19.

He also said they had a target to reach a certain number of votes for the competition, which would make them the prize monies.

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