BLOEMFONTEIN: This year, the War Museum of the Boer Republics was nominated as an outstanding museum in the heritage section of the National Arts and Culture Awards. This recognition is a proud moment for the staff of the museum, indicating they are doing good work.
Although the award went to Kimberley’s William Humphreys Art Gallery at a grand event on 22 August, it was a great honour for the staff of the War Museum in Bloemfontein to receive the nomination.
The other nominee in the same section included the KwaZulu-Natal Museum.
According to Tokkie Pretorius, director of the War Museum, they are honoured to be nominated alongside the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture’s entities.
“We are glad our hard work has been noticed.”
“Our management and team work very hard to keep the museum beautiful and professional, and make sure that we provide a good service to the public.”
The War Museum, which has been receiving clean audits for the past 15 years, has also recently been recognised with a PMR Africa Diamond award.
“An institution cannot apply for a PMR award,” explains Pretorius.
PMR Africa conducts an annual survey to measure and recognise business excellence. This involves interviews with hundreds of professional practitioners, decision-makers and managers who assess companies and institutions in their specific sectors.
“This award represents competitiveness, efficiency, excellence, leadership, resilience, customer service, and customer satisfaction. The staff’s contribution to the establishment of a winning business is recognised by this,” said Pretorius.
This achievement adds to the War Museum’s attainment of clean audit reports, with the most recent for the 2022-’23 and 2023-’24 financial years, indicating an unqualified audit opinion with no findings. This is a continuation of previous clean audits, including one for 2020-’21. The museum also achieved clean audits for the 2018-’19 and 2019-’20 financial years, and 2020-’21.
These clean audits reflect that the museum’s financial statements are free from material misstatements and that it has met its targets over the past five years.
