Eastern Cape ANC says it was entitled to R280k from Winnie Madikizela-Mandela's memorial funds

The ANC in the Eastern Cape says it will not challenge public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s damning report on Winnie Madikizela-Mandela R1.1m memorial service funds despite the party also being implicated.

The party has instead directed its chairperson premier Oscar Mabuyane and provincial treasurer Babalo Madikizela to subject themselves before the integrity commission over the report, insisting that there was no need for it to “swat armpits” debating its implication.

ANC provincial spokesperson Loyiso Magqashela said the party was entitled to the R280,000 it pocketed from the scandal.

Both Mabuyane and Madikizela are planning to take the report on review after it recommended that they be criminally investigated by the Hawks.

The two are accused of having improperly benefited from R1.1m meant for a Winnie Madikizela-Mandela memorial service, which was allegedly channelled back to their accounts from the then Mbizana municipality. .

The party met on Monday and discussed Mkhwebane’s report, including the responses from Mabuyane and Madikizela, who were found to have scored R450,000 and R350,000 respectively.

“We did not see importance in raising the issue about the ANC which is mentioned in the report," Magqashela said. "We know what happened and why we are mentioned there.  It was not anything we wrongly benefited from but it was what was due to us. We felt that there was not even a need to talk about it or take action.” 

Madikizela had told Mkhwebane during the course of investigation that the ANC had at his request paid service providers who ferried people who attended the memorial service after delays in payment by the provincial sports, arts and culture to the department and had resulted in taxi associations making threats to the municipality.

Madikizela had indicated that the ANC had initially planned to host the memorial service before it was taken over by the government and that the taxi associations who had rendered the service were demanding payment, after which he gave the party advance payments and recouped it from the payments made by the municipality.

He further pointed out that the ANC had owed him money, indicating that the R280 000 paid to the party was a balance of the recouped money after he had taken what he was allegedly owed by the party.

Magqashela said the party would not challenge the report but wait for Mabuyane and Madikizela’s mooted legal action.

“We are not going to review anything as the ANC. It is these two comrades who are going to do it,” he said.

While the pair had appeared before the provincial integrity commission when the allegations first surfaced in 2018, the party resolved that they appear before it once again to update it following the report.

“We strongly appeal to all members of the ANC and broader society to give both comrade Mabuyane and comrade Madikizela space as they seek legal review of both the process and substantive facts around the PP report,” the party said.

The ANC further questioned the timing of the release the report by Mkhwebane on the verge of municipal elections.

“This stance and timing regrettably weaponised the belief that the PP is party to intra-party and external factionalism,” it said. 

Mkwebane has however rejected the claims by the ANC as baseless and insisted that the party and its two leaders had improperly benefited from the looting scandal.

“Baseless allegations to the effect that the office is “party to intra-party and external factionalism”,that the report was timed to coincide with the provincial ANC’s election campaign and that the investigation report in question was ready two months ago are rejected with contempt,” Mkhwebane’s office said.

Mhlakaza is accused of having transferred tranches of the money at the instruction of Madikizela to his then business ally Lonwabo Bam before it was distributed to other accounts.

Mkhwebane’s office pointed out that it was Madikizela and Mbizana municipal manager Luvuyo Mahlaka who had on 13 and 22 July 2021 requested extensions of deadline to file submissions, and that once all responses were submitted they were subjected to analysis, legal research and quality assurance within the office.

“The report was released along with seven others at the office’s most recent end-of-quarter media briefing. The office does not stop exercising its powers or performing its functions merely because an election is approaching,” the office said.

The office insisted that it stood by its report and called on the party to concern itself with whether it and its leaders had benefited from "funds siphoned from the public purse under the pretext that the money was going to be used to ferry mourners to the memorial service” .

“The party should also be seized with whether the manner, pattern and short succession in which the funds were disbursed does not raise a suspicion of a commission of criminal conduct in terms of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act and the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act,” the office said.