DURBAN - THERE have been calls for President Cyril Ramaphosa to be disciplined after taking money from private funders to campaign for his presidential election campaign during the run-up to the 2017 ANC elective conference in Nasrec, Johannesburg.
On Monday, during a press briefing in Johannesburg, signatories of the ANC in eight provinces called for the ANC disciplinary committee to take action against the party’s number one. The Western Cape was the only one of the nine South African provinces not to take part in the call.
Speaking to the Daily News, Onica Maphisa, the co-ordinator of the signatories, said that it was time the ANC stopped applying “double standards” and that it treat every ANC member fairly.
“President Ramaphosa used the ‘CR17 Campaign’, that he established to advance his personal presidential ambitions, as the fund-raising and fund distribution tool. None of this is any longer under dispute, it is common cause that this was done, as established in two court hearings,” Maphisa said.
She said the party’s problems were a result of the infiltrators who used money to control the ANC.
“The African National Congress is, as a consequence, faced with a serious legitimacy crisis with regard to the election of President Ramaphosa, and the current national executive committee of the ANC.
“The use of money in order to influence conference outcomes is indeed a very serious matter, and as a consequence of the actions of President Ramaphosa and his ‘CR17 Campaign’, it has become more pronounced and insidious.
“In this context, we, as concerned ANC members in good standing who have the best interests of the ANC at heart, decided to file an application through the Office of the Secretary-General of the ANC, to the effect that disciplinary proceedings must be instituted against President Ramaphosa for having obtained and used private funding with the expressed intention to influence the outcomes of the ANC’s 54th National Conference leadership elections.”
Maphisa said Ramaphosa was accused of deliberately breaching the ANC constitution by accepting private funds and using private business sources to get himself elected as president and going to extraordinary lengths to protect the identity of those who funded his campaign.
She also lashed out at the ANC national executive committee for failing to hold Ramaphosa accountable, saying that was because they had also benefited from the CR17 funds.
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