Johannesburg – Former Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality mayoral committee member Andile Lungisa has challenged the ANC national leadership to institute an investigation into allegations of vote buying during the 2017 party conference that elected Cyril Ramaphosa as president.
Others who had previously made similar startling allegations were former KwaZulu-Natal parliamentary speaker Meshack Radebe and former human settlements, water and sanitation minister Tokyo Sexwale.
Lungisa on Monday penned a letter to the ANC’s top six including Ramaphosa and secretary-general Ace Magashule.
“This letter serves to request the National Officials to attend to the long outstanding matter which had to do with the alleged money which was used to campaign for the current sitting President of the ANC towards the 2017 Nasrec ANC Conference,” he wrote.
Lungisa said he voluntarily stepped down from the Eastern Cape provincial executive committee after allegations were made against him regarding offences, which he said were in line with his duties, and that he was defending himself while being attacked by a member of the opposition party.
He was apparently referring to an incident in which he attacked DA councillor Rano Kayser with a water jug during a debate in 2016. It was reported the Eastern Cape High Court convicted and sentenced him to two years.
“I am wondering what would have been the attitude if it were my campaigners who fundraised close to R1 billion, but it seems we are expected to be quiet because it is President Ramaphosa’s campaigners.
“There is a hardcore evidence today (that) more than millions fundraised to unduly influence delegates at Nasrec,” he said.
He said fundraising with businesses for the conference was a foreign culture in the ANC, and that “in the history of the ANC this has never happened”.
He reminded the leadership that Ramaphosa’s predecessor Thabo Mbeki had during the 2007 Polokwane Conference spoken harshly against this behaviour. He added allowing money to influence the direction of the conference was in contradiction with rule 25 of the party’s constitution. He called on the party’s integrity committee to pronounce itself on the matter.
He alleged that as the sitting deputy president prior to the conference, Ramaphosa knew that millions of rands were collected in his name “and to influence the outcome of a conference of the ANC”.
“He further did nothing to call the grouping out of order or better to bring the officials of the ANC into confidence about this foreign tendency.
“His actions were against culture, tradition and internal organisational processes. In political terms delegates were bought in that Nasrec Conference,” he said.
He said he was hoping his letter would not be used to influence state institutions and “partisan” media to attack him.
“It is now abundantly clear that the country is on the cusp of a perfect storm of a simultaneous political and economic crisis.
“When we all no longer trust the leadership and the comrades, we will only be left with one option – dramatically changing the structure of our society,” he said.
Political Bureau