The ANC has been rocked by a sensational rape claim involving one of its top officials.
Details emerged last night of how a raunchy party at a Sandton hotel led to the claim. The alleged incident took place in April last year.
The Sunday Times has established that the alleged victim, aged 28, claims a date-rape drug was used and that she passed out, only to find a used condom and male underwear on the floor beside her when she regained consciousness.
Others with knowledge of the matter allege an amount R200,000 to keep the matter private was also raised in a letter to ANC secretary-general Ace Magashule.
ANC deputy secretary-general Jessie Duarte confirmed the rape allegation and that a copy of the letter detailing the complaint, which the Sunday Times has seen, had been sent to Magashule.
It reads in part: "I opened the door to [name deleted] and part of my memory is blank. A few hours later we wake up to three men applauding that 'it was going down here'. There were used condoms and your blue underwear on the floor. I remember this because you had been wearing the hotel robe loosely that morning."
But it also emerges in the letter that she never reported the matter to the police and that she tried to get the ANC official to pay for her silence.
Duarte said the ANC had advised the accuser to rather take the rape allegation to the police. It was not clear last night if the accuser had done so.
"We have advised the young lady to go to the police because the matter she is raising requires thorough investigation.
"The ANC does not have the capacity to do that kind of thing," Duarte said.
"The allegation is this happened in a private function, so we really cannot go beyond the advice that we have given her at this time. Finding the relevant facts is the work of the criminal justice system."
The rape claim comes in the same week the ANC reinstated spokesman Pule Mabe following an inquiry that found him not guilty of sexual harassment in a case brought against him by an assistant in his office, Kgoerano Kekana...