The Democratic Alliance says it is to notify the auditor general of an incident in which an Eastern Cape municipality allegedly paid over R3 000 for a lunch for an African National Congress election campaign team.
DA provincial leader Athol Trollip said he had copies of invoices and a cheque made out by the Tsolwana municipality to back up the claim.
He said the municipality paid for an ANC campaigning party’s food and drink at the Royal Hotel in Tarkastad on February 21, 2004.
”The party of 25 ANC members dressed in ANC T-shirts arrived at the hotel in an ANC campaigning truck, where apparently the MEC for local government and housing (Max Mamase) was also present.
”We have in our possession copies of the invoices that accumulate to R3 068 and also a cheque, from the Tsolwana local municipality, made out to the hotel on March 11, for that same amount. They cannot be allowed to waste the public’s money for their pleasure. Every other party funds its own election campaign, why should they be any different?”
He said he had asked the Eastern Cape DA local government spokesperson Bobby Stevenson to table a question in the provincial legislature and report it to the auditor general.
Tsolwana municipal manager Similo Dayi said he was not aware of the lunch, nor that the municipality had paid for any ANC event.
”I haven’t signed anything to do with ANC catering,” he said.
ANC spokesperson in the Eastern Cape Paki Hobongwana said he had no knowledge of the lunch, but cautioned that opposition parties in the province deliberately painted a bad picture of the ANC. He said various government departments, as well as municipalities, had been participating in a broad programme of celebrations of ten years of democracy.
These were not ANC rallies but government programmes, organised in some cases by councillors and district municipalities, and sought to embrace everybody. – Sapa