DA goes to court over food parcels

DA federal executive chairman James Selfe. File photo: Damaris Helwig.

DA federal executive chairman James Selfe. File photo: Damaris Helwig.

Published Apr 20, 2014

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Johannesburg - The Democratic Alliance is set to take the ANC and the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa) to court over the alleged distribution of food parcels at ANC election rallies, the Sunday Times reported.

DA federal executive chairman James Selfe told the newspaper that legal papers were served on ANC Western Cape chairman Marius Fransman and the SA Social Security Agency as the DA believed that these organisations were involved in “the grotesque and continued abuse of state resources for party political gain”.

The case - in which the department of social development would be interdicted - was expected to be brought before the High Court in Cape Town, sitting as an Electoral Court.

Selfe said that he had footage of a recent ANC event in Atlantis where food parcels were distributed by the department of social development, the national development agency and Sassa.

On Thursday, the DA received a joint reply from the Department of Social Development (DSD) and Sassa in which the two bodies said that the party was “contemptuous of the poor” to suggest the distribution of food parcels “constitutes an abuse”.

“There has not been any intentional alignment of poverty relief interventions by DSD and/or Sassa with the election campaigns of any specific party,” said the letter signed by social development department acting director-general Wiseman Magasela.

Meanwhile, Fransman told the Sunday Times that he was unaware of the DA's legal action.

Referring to the event in Atlantis, Fransman said he was “free to go wherever...(he) wanted.

He said his message to the DA was “cowboys don't cry”. - Sapa

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