A leaked audio of an ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting has circulated on social media, in which President Cyril Ramaphosa is heard discussing campaign funding and the use of state resources to finance political campaigns.
In the clip Ramaphosa says:
‘Investigations will reveal that a lot of public money was used (to fund political campaigns). I said, in this case, I am prepared to fall on the sword, so that the CR17 campaign, yes, should be the only one that’s looked at and not the others because the image of the African National Congress is what I am most concerned about.
‘Each one of us knows that quite a bit of money that is used in campaigns, in busing people around, and doing all manner of things, is from state and public resources. We cannot kid ourselves when it comes to that. One of the officials said, as the people from State Security were testifying, one of the officials said, surely, they will be revealing about how money from SSA was used for some campaign. I said, heaven forbid. I would rather they say, yes, you got money from this businessman for CR17 than for the public to finally hear that their money was used to advance certain campaigns.’
The ANC’s head of the Presidency, Sibongile Besani, told News24 that the circulating narrative that Ramaphosa was protecting donors, or those who abused state funding, was not valid.
He said questions were brought up around campaign funding.
Besani said that Ramaphosa saw it important that the debacle not degenerate into a blame game.
Besani also said Ramaphosa was attempting to explain the concerns around how public funds were being abused for campaign funding.
He said Ramaphosa and the ANC were concerned about the issue.
[Image via Facebook: @PeoplesManifestoANC]