By Professor Themba Sono
The ANC has agreed to pay for the trip it illegally undertook in a state-owned aircraft, in order to conduct fraternal discussions with Zimbabwean ruling party Zanu-PF.
Not long ago, I remember reading in the media that the ANC was desperate for money to pay its employees’ salaries. I wonder where it will get the money to pay it back, since the junket will surely be worth a few million rand? I forgot, the ANC sometimes moonlights as the government.
Remember when ousted Eskom chair Zola Tsotsi told the commission on state capture that the ANC was also using state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to raise funds?
The ANC has a penchant for mixing state affairs, and funds, with those of the party. It is not only from SOEs, but also from the national government to municipalities that taxpayers’ money finds a circuitous route to the bank accounts of the party.
The smallanyana skeletons of the luminaries that former Cabinet minister Bathabile Dlamini once referred to, were not small food parcels. Some were huge, ranging from the Bosasa donations to the Gupta brothers to the fleecing of the state coffers.
The ANC will not be short of money, especially as local government elections are looming: the tenderpreneurs and some corrupt foreign operators and governments will align themselves with the party in the hope of scoring big with an ANC victory.
Also, deployed ANC cadres in public administration will give back to the party. The ANC is skilful in cycling public funds to party coffers.
The Star