'To us this is fraud': ANC cries foul as court grants order to attach R102m worth of goods

The ANC says it is unfathomable that it could have spent R102m on posters and banners for its 2019 election campaign.

The party is planning to open a criminal case as it believes fraudulent dealings were carried out between the company and some of Luthuli House employees over the agreement granting Ezulweni Investments a whopping R102m contract to supply election posters and banners.

This as there are fresh reports of a court order granting the KwaZulu-Natal based company rights to attach the ANC's movable goods to recover its money.

The party’s secretary-general Fikile Mbalula on Wednesday said the ANC was convinced there was some fraud committed in the deal.

“To us this is fraud, it is a fraudulent matter which we are going to open a case with the law enforcement now, in terms of the secretary-general, that this matter must be investigated and necessary steps must be taken to deal with it,” said Mbalula.

“We have taken steps dealing with the matter quietly in terms of investigations and everything in our power to deal with this matter. This is just pure fraud that has actually happened and it must be dealt with as such.”

Ezulweni Investment's lawyer Shafique Sarlie, however, told TimeLIVE that the ANC was making a “belated" attempt to avoid paying by raising allegations of fraud for the first time in more than three years of the back-and-forth court battle.

“Desperate, absurd and belated attempt to avoid payment and they have not raised this argument anywhere in their court papers,” said Sarlie.

“It has been over three years, what have you done about it? This is an attempt at clutching at some sort of straw to avoid payment.”

Sarlie confirmed there was a new writ of execution order against the ANC but said they were aware that the ANC can easily get the order to stay the judgment.

The deal between the ANC and Ezulweni Investment was penned during Mbalula’s tenure as the ANC’s head of elections ahead of the 2019 polls.

There were reports at the time that the agreement bore Mbalula’s signature, but he was said to have claimed to not have recognised the document, which gave rise to allegations that his signature may have been forged.

Mbalula said Luthuli House had launched a probe into the matter as it was clear there were some underhanded tactics that took place.

“It is a disaster that you can get people coming together and using the law to trick the ANC in a manner in which this thing has happened. And it is very clear that they couldn't do this thing alone, it was done in collusion clearly with our staff, which we need to take steps equally with those who have aided this criminal activity. It's a criminal activity and we will stand up to defend the ANC,” said Mbalula.

Had the ANC spent such an exorbitant amount on its campaign, the party’s footprint would have been much wider and much bigger.

The ANC should have done a lot more to defend itself when the case first emerged, Mbalula said.

“There was no way that the ANC could spend R102m on posters that you can only account to them in a specific zone. We were all in the campaign, where did you see such posters in our campaign? It was just a quick-quick thing that was done, papers filed, Covid-19, courts, and the ruling was against the ANC and the ANC also did not do much to defend itself when this thing started. Now we're in this disaster which we need to fight and defeat, of course,” he said.

The ANC’s poor financial state, according to Mbalula, makes this deal even more suspicious.

Sarlie said it was concerning that the ANC was raising these allegations now when it went through the campaign and were seeing all the posters, banners and billboards bearing its president’s face but never stopped to question where they came from.

TimesLIVE

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