South Africa

The South African museums that lost R42 million in five years

Shaun Jacobs • 4 March 2025

The Ditsong Museums of South Africa (DMSA), controlled by the Department of Sport, Arts, and Culture, has made a cumulative loss of R42 million in the past five years.

Ditsong Museums is an amalgamation of eight museums in Pretoria and Johannesburg. Their diverse collections cover fauna and flora, palaeontology, military history, cultural history, geology, anthropology, and archaeology.

At the core of Ditsong is the need to collect, conserve, and manage heritage collections of national importance on behalf of South Africans.

The organisation also helps individuals and universities conduct extensive research and ensures this information is published for local and international use.

Among the museums under its management is the Kruger Museum, which is based on Paul Kruger’s Pretoria residence.

Remarkably, Ditsong has overseen the conservation and restoration of the site to the way it would have looked in Kruger’s day.

The house contains either the original furnishings or items from the same historical period, some of the many gifts presented to Kruger, and other memorabilia.

A museum in a similar vein is the Sammy Marks Museum, which is based on the residence of the former industrialist and financier.

Marks was a close friend of Kruger and made millions in the gold rush on the Witwatersrand, in addition to his extensive interests in coal mining.

His house in Zwartkoppies, Pretoria, is managed by Ditsong and has been restored to its original state.

In addition to these two museums, Ditsong manages the National Museums of Natural History, Military History, and Cultural History.

One of its stranger assets is the Tswaing Meteorite Crater, located just north of Pretoria. The crater was created over 200,000 years ago and has extensive human remains from the Stone Age.

Distong’s museums are highly rated, with some being voted Best Museum by Pretoria News in its Readers’ Choice Awards for 2018, 2019, and 2020.

Financial trouble

Despite its world-class assets and conservation efforts, Ditsong has been in financial trouble for the past five years. This is despite the company implementing its own Strategic Plan since 2020, which will end in 2025.

“Confronting and overcoming numerous challenges, DMSA is pleased to report an overall achievement of 81.48% of its planned annual targets,” the company said in its 2023/24 annual report.

“This performance, however, is a regression from the previous year’s achievement of 92%.”

CEO Dr Moleboheng Mohapi said in the latest annual report that Ditsong has been plagued by leadership instability and increased spending constraints imposed by the National Treasury.

The Department of Sport, Arts and Culture also placed a moratorium on recruitment in Ditsong pending the finalisation of the amalgamation process.

“These factors prevented the filling of critical positions in the DMSA; thus, the DMSA continued to function with a high vacancy rate, as it did the previous year,” Mohapi said.

However, the company’s financial troubles are longstanding, with it failing to post a profit (surplus) for the past five years.

This poor financial performance has resulted in Ditsong facing significant liquidity challenges over the past year.

In the past financial year, the company reported a deficit of R6.4 million, which is a vast improvement from the R18.7 million deficit in the year prior.

This made it the fifth consecutive deficit Ditsong has run, with the total now amounting to R42 million.

Mohapi also explained that better financial performance is still some time away as Ditsong’s eleven heritage sites are old and require regular maintenance.

Mohapi said its museums are in desperate need of upgrades, which hampers its efforts to attract visitors and generate revenue.

Ditsong also said that tender fraud and corruption is more widespread than it had initially thought in its latest annual report, saying it is the biggest challenge it faces currently.