John Steenhuisen, DA leader, wants Kholeka Gcaleka, the Public Protector, to pres. Cyril Ramaphosa and the ANC are investigating allegations that the ANC is using taxpayers’ money to garner votes for next month’s general election.
Steenhuisen said in a statement on Sunday that the DA will provide new evidence to substantiate the allegations that the ANC is using state funds for its own gain.
This information came to light in a leaked recording of a meeting of the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) early in April. Sunday Times reported yesterday that the ANC’s top management, Ramaphosa and senior public office bearers have been instructed to “put their shoulder to the wheel” and make a special effort to be visible to voters, to work together with ANC representatives and to engage with communities to step. Ramaphosa would also only be present in places in the country where the ANC has solved some crisis or is close to finding a solution.
In a last desperate attempt to stay in power, according to the survey, the ANC will also bombard listeners of various radio stations with advertisements boasting of the successes the ANC has achieved in the past 30 years. These ads would be paid for with money from taxpayers’ pockets.
According to Steenhuisen, this misuse of taxpayers’ money is proof of the way in which the ANC continues to manipulate South African voters and distort the truth to create the idea that the ruling party has the interests of the country’s citizens at heart. “The ANC abuses every citizen through rampant corruption, which results in the collapse of service delivery,” says Steenhuisen.
He also accused the ANC of “emotional manipulation” and pointed to the recent weeks without load shedding, which he described as further manipulation of state resources.
“Despite 17 years of load shedding that South Africans had to endure under the ANC, the ANC has now, weeks before an election, manipulated state resources to burn more diesel to keep the lights on. Moreover, the ANC is only now paying attention to decades of state collapse under their watch in a desperate attempt to stay in power,” says Steenhuisen.
