DA to lodge Public Protector complaint against ANC for manipulating public funds for electioneering

21 April 2024

As part of our complaint to the Public Protector over President Cyril Ramaphosa and the African National Congress’ (ANC) manipulation of public resources and abuse of state funds to supplement the ANC’s campaign for Election 2024, the Democratic Alliance (DA) will provide new and damning evidence confirming that the ruling party intends to use taxpayer money to help it win votes.

In a leaked recording from an ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting held in early April, it is revealed that the party’s top brass, including President Ramaphosa himself, have instructed senior public office bearers to manipulate the public purse to pay for the ANC’s election campaign. This would be done via a series of public relations exercises and paid media advertisements promoting state projects and governance where the ANC has governed over the last 30 years.

Included in this strategy is a directive to tend to targeted service delivery failures days ahead of ANC campaign visits, to create the illusion of state delivery under the ANC. This desperate exploitation of state collapse, at the very hands of the ANC themselves, to win over voters ahead of crucial national election is the ultimate form of ANC manipulation to date.

This blatant abuse of taxpayer funds is proof of the way in which the ANC continues to manipulate and contort South African voters into believing that the governing party has the people’s interests at heart, all the while abusing each and every citizen through rampant corruption culminating in service delivery collapse. This new revelation is proof that the ANC is the ultimate emotional manipulator, gaslighting the South African electorate with false promises and smoke and mirrors at the taxpayers’ expense all to remain in power.

Despite no end in sight for the 17 years of load shedding that South Africans have been forced to endure under the ANC, now, just weeks from an election, the ANC has manipulated state resources to burn more diesel to keep the lights on. And despite communities having languished under years of no access to water, sanitation, and adequate infrastructure, the ANC is only now addressing decades of state collapse under their watch in the desperate hope of retaining their majority.

It is time for South Africans to see through the ANC’s lies and manipulation, and for citizens to call the ANC out for this electoral gaslighting. No more will we allow ourselves to be at the mercy of a careless party who cares only about the plight of the South African people when elections draw near, using the very same money paid by honest and hardworking citizens meant to fund state delivery, but used to line the pockets of ANC fat cats and fund their desperate election attempts.

On the 29th of May, South Africans need to vote for a party that delivers on its promises. The only party with a track record of delivery, and with the policies to Rescue South Africa, is the DA. In this election, South Africans must vote DA to Rescue South Africa from state collapse, and to Rescue South Africa once and for all from the ANC’s electoral manipulation.

Issued by John Steenhuisen, Leader of the Democratic Alliance, 21 April 2024