Tshwarelo Hunter Mogakane
Pretoria - Re-elected ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe has admitted live on television that he knew of people who were buying votes or using money to influence the election of officials during the 2022 ANC national elective conference.
The conference started on December 16 and concluded on Tuesday, with a new crop of Top 7 officials elected and announced.
On Tuesday morning, Mantashe was given a 16-minute television interview on eNCA, where he answered questions from news anchor Tumelo Mothotoane, who asked him about rumours that President Cyril Ramaphosa’s re-election campaign ran into the millions.
This came against the backdrop of the ANC’s electoral committee issuing strong warnings against any advertising and branding of T-shirts, caps, vehicles, pamphlets, posters, or other printed material to promote candidates.
Notably the committee, led by former ANC deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe as chairperson and Chief Luvhuwani Matsila as secretary, cautioned against the ANC’s decades-old tradition of buying votes.
In fact, four months before the national conference sat, Motlanthe announced that the electoral committee may order full disclosure of all assets, properties, investments, donations and gifts of any member involved.
“The electoral committee has a mandate from the 54th conference to rid the ANC of negative and corrupt practices in leadership selection, vote buying and promotion of slates specifically.
“This will require the full co-operation of the nominee. The committee may also open a criminal or civil case,” Motlanthe warned. However, Mantashe was far from shy when he admitted that he knew about the forbidden activities.
“If there’s one battle that we almost lost, it was the battle and fight against money. In the past, we had this thing that money is used and so forth.
“This time around you have people at branch level and regional level phoning you: ‘I have this number of delegates, please give me so much money’,” said Mantashe, using general terms.
Mothotoane wanted him to be specific. “How much money are we talking?” she asked.
“It depends. One person phoned me and said, ‘I have 140 delegates, give me R100 000’.
“And I tell him, if I had R100 000 I would go to auction and buy sheep or cattle,” he said.
Mothotoane asked Mantashe about the money Ramaphosa used in his re-election campaign.
“How are you going to deal with it because also, Cyril Ramaphosa’s campaign has been accused of running a multimillion-rand campaign?” she said.
“I’m not sure, I think he scaled down this year. Last time he was in trouble about that. But today it was more complex because it was widespread.
“For example, there was a man who was campaigning for treasurer-general. He worked in the office of the president. We raised our concerns.
‘This person is in your office; he is going around buying votes, please deal with that issue’.
“Fortunately, or unfortunately, he is not elected treasurer-general of the ANC, but if you go around displaying money, it is the worst way of dealing with things.
“Then you spoil these delegates; when they talk to you and you don’t give them money, they think that you are sick,” said Mantashe.
He was not asked whether he reported the forbidden activities to the electoral committee.
He was also not asked to provide the name of the individual in the president’s office. However, going to the conference, the ANC electoral committee named three men as contenders for the treasurer-general position.
They are Bejani Chauke, Pule Mabe and Mzwandile Masina.
Of the three initial nominees for the treasurer-general position, only Chauke works, or worked, in Ramaphosa’s office as a special adviser.
Two other nominees for this position were nominated from the floor, namely Andile Lungisa and Gwen Ramokgopa. Lungisa was disqualified, but Ramokgopa eventually beat the three initial candidates for the position.
When contacted for comment on the glaring inconsistencies with the conference rules as far as Mantashe’s admissions were concerned, Chief Matsila did not respond to media questions from Independent Media.
Outgoing ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe ignored questions sent to him via WhatsApp on Tuesday night.
Chauke also did not respond to media questions on the matter.
Presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya did not respond to media questions regarding Chauke’s employment in the Presidency.
Pretoria News