Tshwarelo Hunter Mogakane
Pretoria - The ANC electoral committee has warned members of the party against making “unsubstantiated” claims about acts of bribery to influence the outcome of the national conference, which ended this week.
Committee secretary Chief Luvhuwani Matsila issued the warning following questions sent to the committee by the Pretoria News relating to a television interview in which ANC national chairperson Gwede Mantashe said someone from President Cyril Ramaphosa’s office was buying votes.
Mantashe told eNCA: “For example, there was a man who was campaigning for treasurer-general. He worked in the office of the president. We raised our concerns. ‘This person is in your office; he is going around buying votes, please deal with that issue’.”
This was not the only bribery incident that Mantashe mentioned during the interview. “One person phoned me and said, ‘I have 140 delegates, give me R100 000’. And I tell him, ‘if I had R100 000 I would go to (an) auction and buy sheep or cattle’,” he said.
Asked whether the electoral committee was furnished with the information Mantashe shared on television, Matsila said it was news to them.
“The electoral committee was not aware of the media utterances by the national chair of the ANC, Cde Gwede Mantashe, and he has not reported the matters to the electoral committee.
“The electoral committee only deals with disputes or complaints which are submitted formally and supported by tangible evidence. We therefore wish to caution all leaders and members of the ANC to refrain from making unsubstantiated allegations of vote buying or irregularities,“ said Matsila.
He said they were scrutinising financial disclosures and would “take the necessary steps against candidates found to have violated the electoral rules of the ANC in so far as the use of campaign funds is concerned”.
“The electoral committee has so far not received any complaints regarding vote buying or related misdemeanours. Where sufficient evidence of financial irregularities is made available to the electoral committee, we shall bring this to the attention of law enforcement agencies as and when necessary.”
Pretoria News