The Inkatha Freedom Party is plotting to use taxpayers’ money to enhance the profiles of its leaders and ”knock” the image of African National Congress leaders in KwaZulu-Natal ahead of the 2004 election.
The Mail & Guardian is in possession of a report that contains details of the plan. The report was compiled by an ”elite” group within the IFP called the strategic coordinating unit (Stratcon) and was presented to the IFP’s national council in March this year.
Stratcon, which consists of a core of senior IFP leaders, is chaired by IFP national spokesperson Musa Zondi and reports to the IFP’s national council. Its workshops have been addressed by, among others, IFP president Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s adviser Mario Ambrosini, former head of the KwaZulu Finance Corporation and provincial government adviser Marius Spies and former head of Parliament’s public accounts committee Gavin Woods.
The plan was set in motion after a meeting between Stratcon and the IFP component of the KwaZulu-Natal government held in January. It aims to use the departmental budgets of IFP provincial ministers to create a ”warm” and ”caring” image of the IFP leadership and to downplay and hijack the successes of ANC provincial ministers.
”We must create the impression that the government cares. Our executive must not be seen as aloof, reserved, and cold and removed. It must be seen as sensitive to people’s concerns, as readily accessible, as warm and as concerned. This must be stressed in a PR campaign,” the report says.
Stratcon’s report singles out the ANC’s provincial chairperson S’bu Ndebele and his deputy Zweli Mkhize, whose image it says must be weakened through cutting their budgets and having Premier Lionel Mtshali take credit for their achievements.
Significantly, the IFP’s national conference, which begins today, will be examining its options about staying in government with the ANC at national and provincial level.
According to the report, Stratcon asked the IFP provincial ministers ”to establish if funds were available within their department’s communications budget for the express purpose of radio advertising.”
The report says: ”We should use the transport committee of the Legislature to knock [provincial transport minister S’bu] Ndebele’s excessive PR expenditure (such as advertising on national TV), whilst raising the expenditure of our ministers. Moreover, our committees on transport and health need to be hard-hitting generally. They must leave no stone unturned to weaken the image of Ndebele and Mkize [sic].”
The report says the communications directorate in the office of Mtshali should be ”requested to identify public relations consultants that would assist the premier and the IFP provincial ministers to evaluate their public relations capacities, and make recommendations if there are any shortcomings.
”Each Minister needs to match if not better Ndebele’s PR. It is important that each Minister willingly participates in these PR campaigns, which are, after all, selling the Minister and the party to the electorate. A professional campaign should map out activities until the elections.”
The ministers were asked to submit proposals to ”maximise their communication capacities to Stratcon by the 28th February”. The proposals, the report said, ”will include a candid assessment and evaluation of the Minister’s public relations capacity and training within the department and in the Minister’s office.
”The reports will also include any training requirements of the Minister and his/her staff in media and communication articulation skills. For budgetary purposes, each Minister would take responsibility for their own training.”
Zondi denied that the IFP was doing any ”hanky-panky with public funds”. He said IFP ministers were officials representing the party in public, ”so we have to ensure that they are doing their job and that the public is aware of the work they are doing”.
He accused the M&G of ”stealing” private party documents and of practising ”gutter journalism”. He claimed the newspaper might have obtained the Stratcon documents ”unlawfully” by bribing workers in the IFP’s offices.
On the IFP’s larger strategy for taking on the ANC in the province, the report notes: ”The public however, probably sees two parallel governments, one compromising the IFP (and now DA component) and one an ANC component. Ndebele and Mkhize are seen as delivering ANC projects under ANC departments. We need to ensure that their successes are seen as KZN government successes (they are merely giving effect to the policy vesting in the premier), but by the same token, we should take advantage of their failure from the opposite perspective.”
Stratcon recommended that Mtshali should indicate in his state of the province address that ”he was firmly in charge and that it is his writ that runs through the government”.
Stratcon also asked Mtshali to visit hospitals with provincial health minister Mkhize to ”identify problems faced by hospitals and talk to mothers in maternity wards about nevirapine”.
ANC spokesperson Mtholephi Mthimkhulu called for an urgent probe by the provincial public accounts committee and the auditor general into the apparently ”scandalous” use of public funds for party purposes.
”As the ANC we are not surprised — we feel vindicated. This is a [modus] operandi similar to the one used by the erstwhile apartheid regime — siphoning public funds for party political purposes and dirty tricks.”