KUALA LUMPUR: Istana Budaya expects to be able to collect up to RM700,000 from 37 companies who were show sponsors but have yet to pay their sponsorship debt since 2010.
Its director-general Datuk Mohamed Juhari Shaarani said the outstanding debts need to be paid by the companies who have booked for this year’s staging slots at Istana Budaya.
“If they (the sponsors) want to have staging slots, they have to pay their existing debts first.
“To prevent the debts from growing, we urge everyone to pay up and will blacklist the problematic companies,” he said when contacted by Bernama here yesterday.
“From what we can see, after this issue was reported by the media, some of them have begun to take steps for the debt repayment.
“In fact, we also gave them the opportunity to pay the debts in installments. As long as they show an effort to settle the outstanding debts, they will not be blacklisted,” he said.
Mohamed Juhari added that Istana Budaya will not hesitate to take legal action against stubborn defaulters.
“This time, we will no longer give any more leeway. We have to be more aggressive as this issue has given a negative image of Istana Budaya.
“It’s not that we want to scare them but we want to knock into them some sense of responsibility, as they should have sound financial standing and should not simply rely on the ticket sales,” he said.
According to him, to avoid the issue from recurring, Istana Budaya had to change its standard operating procedures since last year.
“Apart from imposing a deposit fee, the companies also need to pay 50 per cent of the stage rental before the show starts. This has to be done as an effort to avoid this problem from recurring,” he said. – Bernama
