Sisulu says 'every penny' of her presidential campaign accounted for

Human settlements minister Lindiwe Sisulu says that she is willing to reveal how her presidential campaign is being funded.

Sisulu offered to make her bank statements public during a discussion with Karima Brown at Radio 702’s  Townhall Meeting on Wednesday.

“There are people especially my family and friends who are offering and have offered to pay. What attracts me to my campaign is I know everybody who is in that campaign has come out of commitment‚ deep seated commitment. Not one of them has come hoping to get anything out of it‚” she said.

“I would like to give you all my account numbers‚ I’d like to give you the constituency funds that we use and we send‚ not KMPG‚ but any auditor there. Every penny is accounted for from where it comes from and every penny that is used is used for a particular purpose.”

The presidential hopeful said that she wants people to trust her and know that she will safeguard the values of the ANC.

Asked about the intelligence report that featured in the sacking of Pravin Gordhan and Mcebisi Jonas‚ Sisulu said that the president had gone on record saying that his relationship with Gordhan had deteriorated.

“At the back of it there could have been this report that was proven to be fake because there was a public press conference at which Solly Mapaila read from the script of this particular bogus report. It ought not to be all over the place‚ very badly written‚” she said.

“I am not sure if any steps have been taken to verify that report. The Inspector General should not have been sitting on this matter for so long‚ this is an important matter. Intelligence needs to be dealt with instantaneously beyond that it is history. You can’t be sitting on that kind of report. The Gupta leaks have been floating around‚ no one is doing anything about it‚ they have become normal. It is a new normal to find something in the newspaper about the Gupta leaks. Nobody has actually said we’ve investigated this and this is what the truth is and this is what is untrue about this.”

Sisulu also spoke about the presidential campaign after members of the party made themselves available to replace President Jacob Zuma.

“It is quite a difficult space to be in. In the ANC we don’t campaign. It is just very uncharacteristic of the ANC and we are thrust in a situation where we have more than two contenders for the job and therefore we are thrown in a situation where we’ve got to move with the time and be in a campaign mood which is a new terrain.”

On why she thought that she was right for the job‚ she said: “I am standing [for ANC president] because I’ve come to a point where I’ve realised that we are at a crossroads. I have realised that we have just repeated what we have in Polokwane. We are going through a very difficult time in the ANC. The factions in the ANC are almost identical in the palpability to those which we had in Polokwane and it is not good for the ANC‚ it is not good for democracy‚ it is not good for the general public.”