ANC takes 4 years to pay CTICC bill

CTICC Cape Town Convention centre. Picture handout

CTICC Cape Town Convention centre. Picture handout

Published Mar 11, 2015

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Cape Town - The Cape Town International Convention Centre can finally close the book on the ANC’s outstanding debt of R1.8 million after a “full and final payment” was made.

Louise Muller, the City of Cape Town’s director of shareholding management, told the municipal public accounts committee on Tuesday that Convenco had reached a settlement with the Western Cape ANC branch, ending a protracted battle dating back to 2011 to recoup the outstanding payment. She said she had received an e-mail this week to say that the full payment had been made by the ANC.

The CTICC, managed by Convenco, is a municipality entity, and the city has been working with Convenco for the past four years to get the money.

The ANC hired the CTICC in 2011 for its provincial elective conference at a cost of R2.05m.

Fezile Calana, treasurer of the provincial ANC, signed the contract with the CTICC.

On February 11, 2011, Calana confirmed that a deposit of R1m had been made for the hire of the venue for three days, until February 13.

But the cheque bounced.

An amount of R250 000 was transferred to the CTICC later that afternoon, once the conference had already started.

The following day, a further payment of R810 000 was made by Calana. Again, the cheque did not clear because Calana had insufficient funds in his account.

In a report to the municipal public accounts committee, Richard Wootton of the city’s finance department, said that a letter of demand was sent to the ANC. After several calls and letters failed to elicit payment, the matter was handed to the CTICC’s attorneys in March 2011.

In August that year the CTICC obtained a default judgment against the ANC and a writ of execution was issued.

After goods worth just R15 000 were attached, the ANC paid R100 000 and the two parties agreed to additional time to settle the judgment debt.

But the ANC failed to make the arranged payments.

Both the CTICC and the city continued to press the ANC.

In February 2012, the ANC promised to repay the CTICC installments of R350 000 a month. One payment of R150 000 was made a year later.

In July 2013, the CTICC sent a registered letter to Gwede Mantashe, secretary-general of the ANC, regarding the outstanding debt which was now at R1.54m.

Last year, the CTICC reported that it had tried “virtually on a daily basis” to meet the provincial leadership of the ANC about the outstanding debt, which now included an additional R379 285 in interest.

In October, Convenco’s board accepted the recommendation from the city that the ANC should not be allowed to hold further events at the CTICC until it had cleared its debt.

After a meeting between the ANC and Convenco in November last year, the party indicated that it would make a payment by the end of the month.

Last month, Muller reported that no payment had been made.

Wootton said the city had tried to link the payment of the outstanding debt to the hiring of the Cape Town Stadium for the ANC’s birthday bash there in January, without any success.

Convenco confirmed on Tuesday that the debt had been settled, but declined to provide any details of the payment terms.

Julie-May Ellingson, chief executive officer of the CTICC, said the longstanding debt would have no bearing on future agreements with the ANC.

“The ANC has been a longstanding and valued client of the CTICC and apart from this one event, we have never had any issues and we look forward to hosting the ANC again in the future.”

ANC provincial secretary Songezo Mjongile referred queries to Calana, who could not be reached on Tuesday at the time of going to press.

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Cape Argus

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