Money a problem in the ANC — Ace
● The ANC is reviewing the guidelines that regulate its leadership contests in the wake of the leaking of the CR17 bank statements that showed how millions were donated and spent on President Cyril Ramaphosa’s ANC presidency campaign.
Party secretary-general Ace Magashule told the Sunday Times last week that the party was in a process to “refine” the “through the eye of the needle” document that guides the process of choosing leaders.
“We have agreed we need to engage that document because conditions differ from time to time … we have agreed the [political] education and organising subcommittee must look into that document and further refine it to guide our contestation as we go to branch, region, provincial and national conferences.”
Magashule said there was acceptance within the ANC that the use of money in party elective conferences was a problem.
“All the resolutions of the ANC … you can look at all conferences and you can look at the diagnostic report by former secretary-general Gwede Mantashe … We said money is a problem. In the ANC we don’t expect people to be using money. We don’t want anybody to be buying favours,” he said.
Talk of reviewing the party guidelines comes as Ramaphosa was attacked from within and outside the ANC after revelations that millions were donated to his campaign and that some of his lobbyists had received monthly payments.
These revelations came after public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane made an adverse finding against the president on how he had handled a R500,000 donation from controversial company Bosasa.
However, insiders say all factions that competed for positions at the 2017 Nasrec conference, which elected Ramaphosa, were well funded, including the one Magashule belonged to.
Magashule would not be drawn on whether the party would act against those who had used money to influence the outcome, saying those matters would be addressed internally.
“Every leader of the ANC has been very critical about us using money because leaders are identified. Leaders are elected. Leaders emerge out of struggle.
“We have always condemned these foreign tendencies within the ANC. Those tendencies are foreign and we will condemn them forever because there are clear conference resolutions and decisions and we must all adhere to those resolutions,” he said.
Critics say the ANC will find it difficult to eliminate the culture of using money to leverage votes for as long as it still behaves like a banned underground organisation that does not allow its leaders to openly campaign for positions.
But Magashule said the review would not result in the radical reform of the party’s election contests and campaigns.
“We have not changed our character. We won’t behave like a pure electoral party that goes to the electorate during elections — we have principles.
“If you understand the ANC, you will never move away from ANC objectives and principles, culture and traditions.
“If you want to move away from it you must go to conference and change. Persuade people to take certain resolutions. The highest decision-making body is national conference, and national conference has never changed the character of the ANC,” he said.
Ramaphosa’s backers have claimed that the leaks of the bank statements were a well-orchestrated plan that was part of a fightback strategy to weaken Ramaphosa.
Magashule said attacks on ANC presidents were not new as even former presidents Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki had come under attack from time to time.
“We have always defended the ANC leadership. That’s the culture and traditions we have grown up in,” he said.
But he warned against labelling criticism of Ramaphosa as part of a fightback strategy, saying citizens and ANC members were allowed to express their opinions about matters in the public domain.
“So when people express their views, don’t say ‘they are this and that’. [I] don’t want to say there is a fightback. South Africans are expressing themselves on a daily basis. Comrades are expressing themselves on a daily basis,” said Magashule.