THE ANC announced on Sunday that the crowdfunding campaign was going well, a day after the governing party appealed to the public to make contributions, fueling speculation that it is in deep financial trouble.
The party took to social media on Saturday to ask for donations.
The ANC has been experiencing money problems for a while now, including failing to pay salaries to employees for the past three months.
Employee salaries are yet to be paid for July and August, but ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe insists the party is not broke.
On Thursday ANC employees embarked on a wildcat strike following non-payment of salaries at the end of August.
“I want us to move to a very important point that we addressed yesterday in terms of the innovative ways through which the ANC now wants to mobilise funds and preface this by first thanking the many South Africans, the supporters of the ANC that have been putting monies towards our crowdfunding initiative,,” Mabe told eNCA on Sunday.
“I mean over the past three days, we have been receiving quite a lot of donations and this is the people of this country. I mean on my phone here, I am sitting with a lot of proof of payments.”
The party is also denying that Treasurer-General Paul Mashatile received payments from a selection of business people.
In a statement, the party said it wants to assure everyone, that its challenges will be resolved by initiatives including increasing membership fees and levies.
In recent months, Mashatu attributed the lack of finances to uncertainty from donors amid the implementation of the Political Party Funding Bill, which came into effect on April 1.
“No, we are not bankrupt — the problem is that funding from donors has been trickling in as opposed to previous years. You may recall that as of April 1 we have a law that governs how political parties receive their funding. Since the advent of the new law … there has been a great reluctance from many businesses to donate, because of disclosure, so as a result we struggle to get money on time,” he said.
“It may well be that the reluctance now is also because people may be accused of getting tenders from the ANC, so they stay away, but there is also another factor since the pandemic in 2020 and the lockdown of the economy, many business have been struggling.”
- Inside Politics
