The Fergusons vs Former Employees

Hey guys so this is a story I have been wanting to cover on the blog but I had a feeling that I should wait because I knew it was gonna be taken to another level. The drama started with Vatiswa Ndara publishing an open letter where she states that she and the rest of the cast wanted to submit Igazi for the international Emmys. The open letter included correspondence between Vatiswa and the office of the minister of Arts & Culture, Nathi Mthetwa where Ms Ndara requested for funding to submit nominations for Igazi. The office responded that unfortunately they could not allocate the requested funds.

The story then took a turn when the Fergusons issued a statement that they were not able to provide Miss Ndara with the R700 000 that she requested, this was a fact that was not included in Miss Ndara's open letter and social media posts. the production company then went on to refute other allegations made by Miss Ndara such as that the production company benefits from the royalties acquired through episode encores. The open letter by Ferguson productions is noted below. The most notable impact of the open letter was the awareness that was created for the policing of the entertainment industry

The matter took a turn when veteran actress Mara-Louw who stated that the Fergusons were not paying her the amounts that were due to her. This is not the first time that Mara-Louw publicly dragged the Fergusons. The previous public statements that she had made about Shona Ferguson specifically were that they were exploiting actors.

I applaud the dialogue that is created to raise awareness about the issues that are facing the local entertainment industry. The one commentary I would make is that veteran actors such as Miss Ndara and Mara-Louw  must be careful not to make themselves 'unemployable' as we saw in the case of Monique.  These issues should be highlighted in a more productive manner than the slamming of particular industry members.