The South African Music Awards (Samas) are mired in yet another controversy as a leaked document shows concerns over how now-cancelled KwaZulu-Natal funding worth R28-million was going to be spent. It also transpires that the man behind the 2014 Tribe One debacle is a senior member of the board that oversees the Samas.

A document purported to have been leaked from inside the KwaZulu-Natal provincial treasury department reveals internal concerns over highly irregular expenditure that led to the last-minute withdrawal last week of provincial sponsorship of the South African Music Awards (Samas), on the orders of President Cyril Ramaphosa himself.

News24 reported that Ramaphosa instructed tourism MEC Siboniso Duma to withdraw his department's sponsorship of the event - a whopping sum of R28-million, according to the leaked document.

Duma subsequently slammed the media's use of the figure as part of a "campaign of disinformation".

The Samas are run by the Recording Industry of South Africa (Risa), which hit back at the Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs (EDTEA) in KwaZulu-Natal on Thursday, 26 October, for pulling the primary funding for its controversial annual event, just three weeks before it was due to take place, on 17 November.

In recent years, the Samas have experienced a slew of setbacks, postponements, dismissals for violation of rules and allegations of mismanagement and corruption, under the leadership of Risa CEO Nhlanhla Sibisi.

"We note with dismay that a ... national cultural asset that has been in operation for 29 uninterrupted years, longer...