ActionSA wants the financial affairs of the Economic Freedom Fighters and uMkhonto Wesizwe Party investigated and announced court action against the Independent Electoral Commission to force the agency to probe how the ANC paid off a debt of more than R100 Million to a company known as Ezulweni which it had owed for several years.
The party held a media briefing in Johannesburg on Tuesday where it argued that its own assessment suggests the two’s election campaign costs ran into hundreds of million rand while they only disclosed donations of only R3,5Million and R380 000 respectively.
The party is already in a coalition government that includes both the ANC and the red berets in the City of Johannesburg and is considering getting into a similar arrangement in the City of Tshwane and said it does not believe its insistence on “transparency” will not offend its new allies.
National Chairperson Michael Beauomont said the election would have produced a completely different outcome had the general public known who funded who.
“We are launching legal action against the IEC in respect of its continued failure to investigate the ANC-Ezwilini Investment debt settlement agreement that was announced by the ANC in December 2023. In addition to that we have lodged complaints to the IEC to require further investigations of two political parties in this election that being the Economic Freedom Fighters and uMkhonto Wesizwe.
“Two political parties that if you look at their declarations and you look at their election campaigns the one does not explain the other. There’s no way on earth that an institution can safeguard a financial investigative process like the party funding act requires if the IEC is not gonna pay attention to the fact that for example MK declared R380 000 worth of donations in this election in a campaign that must have cost them more than a hundred million. If we are going to take that fact seriously then we must really ask ourselves what is the point of the party funding act and whether our constitutional court and its intentions have been grossly undermined in this process,” Beaumont.
Beaumont said the ANC was simply not in a position to settle such a debt as it was experiencing much publicised financial difficulties at the time.
“In the 2021-2022 financial year you would all recall that the ANC was in a position of financial hardship, that their employees were striking outside of their offices after non-payment for months on end. This was not an organisation in a strong financial position to settle a massive debt agreement. At the end of 2023 Ezuleni Investments obtained a liquidation order against the ANC that fundamentally challenged the existence of that party and then on the 22nd of December the ANC through its former spokesperson Zizi Kodwa made the announcement that the debt settlement agreement had been settled. It was a two line press statement and I think members of the media may join me to share the view that the shorter the press statement the more concerned we should be as a country,” said Beaumont on how the ANC settled the debt.
While admitting that the IEC does not really have the capacity to investigate compliance with political party funding legislation, it believed the commission was not even trying to probe the ANC payment.
Beaumont said the claim that the EFF and MK are witholding donations that needed to be declared, Beaumont said ActionSA monitored the campaign events of the two parties and that it believed they must have spent much more.
“We have analysed the funding that both these parties have received since quarter 1 of the 2022-2023 financial year which you must appreciate that we are talking about two financial years ago. What it reveals in that time is that the EFF declared a total R3.5 Million rand worth of donation and MK declared a total of R380 000 worth of donations. I think we need to have a frank and honest conversation as South Africans who traveled our roads, viewed party posters, and watched rallies on tv that were estimated to cost millions and millions of rands. If anybody thinks that election campaigns are funded on those disclosures then I am afraid we are living in an alternative universe. we have to be frank about those disclosures and whether or not those campaigns could have been funded against that”, he said of the EFF and MKP.
“the amounts declared in the tables raises suspicion that the disclosures to the IEC reveal only part of the picture and that the South African voters did not have the full picture when they went to vote on the 29th of May. if one looks at the cost of the EFF campaign which we have embarked on a process to cost, as indicated it would have cost at least a minimum of R200 Million based on what we have seen what the rallies cost, what posters cost, a lot of these things are done by service providers shared between different political parties and that way we have a very good sense of what these things cost,” said Beaumont of the EFF.
“Beaumont said MKP also received suspicious funding. ” similarly the MK Party ran a campaign that was seemingly very well funded with rumors of funding in cash and foreign funding and yet they have only declared R380 000 for a campaign that was filing stadia, that was very well resourced in terms of branding, that involved expensive branded vehicles cable chains around the country and is very clear that this is a campaign that cannot be substantiated on the basis of the R380 000 worth of disclosures,” he said.
“Beaumont said ActionSA is hoping its complaint to the IEC about the EFF and MKP would result in stricter requirements being included in the political party funding bill. ” The basis upon this particular campaign is to say to the IEC that requiring a political party to self incriminate before you investigate is not adequate and that any institution responsible for safeguarding a financial investigation has to ask itself the question whether the income justifies the expenditure. ignoring that question is ignoring the fundamental purpose of the act which is precisely why we have taken this particular step,” he said.