Africa-Press – South-Africa. All right-thinking and well-intentioned ANC cadres must be deeply concerned with the financial situation we find ourselves in, writes ANC spokesperson
Pule Mabe in his personal capacity.
It is no secret that the ANC is facing ongoing financial challenges. The party is battling to meet financial obligations, such as staff salaries, tax and other responsibilities.
This is not to mention the other things that a political party has to find money for: contest and win elections, run campaigns, conduct research and produce policy documents, propagate its ideas in society, and generally make its presence felt and significant.
This crisis also provides a space for many in the party to engage in factional battles. It’s almost as if no one cares to understand the problem, let alone find a way to resolve it, as long as they can use it to paint their party adversaries in a bad light.
While branches and regions are still in the process of deciding on who they want to lead the party, the treasurer-general (TG), Paul Mashatile, has been nominated by many for the position of deputy president at our 55th national conference later this year. Some have sought to use the issue of our strained finances, something that is a serious problem for the very future of the ANC, and even a personal tragedy for many thousands of people who depend on the movement for their livelihoods, as a political stick to beat the TG with.
But these comrades are deliberately ignoring that the ANC has a history of financial troubles that predate the current TG, and which are likely to outlast him if we don’t follow at least some of the things he has suggested in order to stem the crisis.
Very bleak picture
Perhaps some people need to be reminded that, at the 54th national conference in 2017 (the Nasrec conference that elected cde Mashatile to his current post), the then TG, Zweli Mkhize, painted a very bleak picture of the ANC’s financial position.
His financial report to the conference indicated that the ANC was R215 million in debt and had a deficit (the amount by which expenses exceed revenue) of R47 million. By 2017 already, the ANC was effectively insolvent.
The question that ANC members must ask of their leaders, particularly the NEC elected at that conference, is what they have done since then to change this dismal picture. Have they all just sat back, believing that it doesn’t concern or affect them? Or that it’s only the responsibility of the TG to care about the ANC’s financial health?
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As bad as things were in 2017, there is no denying that they’ve become worse in the current term. Today, the party battles to pay staff salaries, and we very nearly missed the deadline to register party candidates for the 2021 municipal elections, largely owing to our financial troubles. We now have a R10m-a-month liability to our employee retirement fund, enforced by the authorities because of years of arrears. The movement even faces an insurmountable bill from SARS.
Why has the situation become worse? A number of factors, some beyond our control, and others of our own making, can explain the situation.
Like other political parties, the ANC generates its revenue from private donations. During cde Mkhize’s term of office, the ANC collected over R2.6 billion in such donations. The financials are not yet out, but it is clear that our ability to collect donations has declined significantly since then.
Reasons for lower donations
Firstly, the post-Covid 19 period has been hard on political parties and other organisations dependent on subscription fees and donations. That is something no one could have predicted and that nobody is responsible for. The economy is also in a bad shape, which usually leads companies and individuals to cut back on “discretionary” spending, such as donations and subscriptions.
But we could have predicted, and many people did predict, the harm that has been caused to political parties by the passing of the Political Party Funding Act. The legislation, though it is well-meaning in its intentions, has nearly destroyed the financial health of political parties by adopting too restrictive an approach.
For instance:
In addition to this, the law establishes alternative funding mechanisms to support all our political parties, but so far none of these alternatives are operational and, even when they start working, there is no guarantee what they provide will be enough to replace what parties lose from their established donors.
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The ANC must work with other political parties – that are as badly affected, if not more – to right the wrongs of the new law, before we do more harm not just to the ANC, but to the entire electoral process on which our democracy rests. All of this is work that must be carried out, first and foremost by the president of the ANC, the current NEC, and the party caucus in Parliament. It is not for the TG to fix these legal issues.
The role of ANC structures
There are also problems unique to the structures of the ANC that we must deal with decisively. A recent news report wrote glowingly about the financial report presented at the Gauteng provincial conference, going so far as to contrast the financial ‘clean bill of health’ obtained by Gauteng with the chronically bad finances of Luthuli House.
Yet buried deep amid the praise was this revelation: “… the ANC in Gauteng [has] had to reduce its staff complement as it has struggled to meet its obligations in that regard. This left the province with no option but to hand over the salary obligations to Luthuli House, the ANC’s national headquarters.”
Now, keep in mind the ANC has nine provinces, all of which have countless regional and local structures. All of those incur debts and expenses that they often fail to plan adequately for and end up in trouble. As seen in the case of Gauteng, these debts sometimes end up on the balance sheet of Luthuli House, worsening the movement’s overall financial position.
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All right-thinking and well-intentioned ANC cadres must be deeply concerned with the financial situation we find ourselves in. And all must participate in any good faith attempt to find solutions and raise funds for the movement.
The TG has previously suggested and even actively campaigned for the ANC to embrace new forms of fundraising (such as crowdfunding and the use of digital tools to collect and manage funds), while also talking about the need to reduce the bloated salary bill, perhaps through staff reductions, if necessary.
It is not only up to the TG to apply his mind and his energies to a problem that threatens the very existence of the ANC. Unless, of course, we are more concerned with our own well-being and want to serve our own individual and factional interests, rather than the ANC.
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