Genevieve Quintal | 09 November, 2016 18:06
Supporters of the African National Congress hold the party flag during ANC president Jacob Zuma's election campaign in Atteridgeville a township located to the west of Pretoria, South Africa July 5, 2016
Image by: SIPHIWE SIBEKO / REUTERS
The ANC spent R380 million on its campaign for the August local government elections.
This is according to a document on state power and the elections released by the SA Communist Party (SACP) on Wednesday. According to the SACP‚ this was the amount accounted for by ANC treasurer-general Zweli Mkhize.
"It is a figure that excludes the funding received by many individual ANC personalities and factions with strong ties to the corporate world‚ some of which would have been spent on the ANC campaign and some of it will have disappeared into private and factional pockets‚" said the SACP‚ which is an ANC alliance partner.
Mkhize could not be reached immediately for comment. In July‚ while on the ANC campaign trail before the elections‚ Water Affairs and Sanitation Minister Nomvula Mokonyane told journalists that the party had spent more than R1 billion on its campaign. The ANC denied this.
The party's leaders refused to put a figure to the cost of the campaign‚ merely saying that no more than R500 million had been spent. In the document‚ the SACP says Mpumalanga premier David Mabuza‚ a strong ally of President Jacob Zuma‚ was provided with the use of an ANC-branded helicopter for 10 days on the eve of the election.
"Presumably‚ it was not included in the ANC's R380 million election budget‚" the party said. The SACP also noted reports that businessman Robert Gumede had made substantial donations to the ANC in Mpumalanga ahead of the elections.
Gumede‚ a well-known ANC benefactor‚ handed over 10 brand-new Ford Rangers‚ four buses and 20 iPads to the provincial leadership at its office in Nelspruit in June. According to the SACP‚ the DA's official electoral funding was not much less than the ANC's.
It quoted the Sunday Times‚ which reported that DA officials had said the party's election budget of R350 million was likely to have been exceeded because of private funders.
The ANC's electoral support dropped eight percentage points in this year's local government elections‚ and it lost control of four of SA's eight metros to the DA. The SACP believes that the "not more than R10 million" alleged to have been spent by the EFF was an "understatement".
However‚ the red berets' funding was significantly less than that of the ANC and DA.