ANC unable to meet August salary bill
In what is becoming a disturbing trend, South Africa’s ruling ANC party has once again failed to pay its staff, this time for August.
The seeming cash-strapped ANC was not able to meet its salary bill for the month of August, an unnamed ANC source confirmed to The South African (TSA), despite it been scheduled to pay staff their salaries on August 25.
Failure by the governing party to pay its staff their salaries is nothing new, as TSA reported in June.
The ANC was faced with a similar problem in December 2019.
SG Magashule’s letter
In a letter to ANC staff from secretary-general Ace Magashule dated September 3, 2020, the party said that it would not be able to pay the salaries of its hundreds of workers across the country.
“Kindly note that above mentioned employee won’t be able to fulfil monthly instalments on time this month due to salary delay, payments are pending till further notice.”
ANC staff were only paid their salaries after Christmas last year.
And in June 2020, ANC treasurer-general Paul Mashatile advised staff that their salaries would be paid five days after the scheduled 25th of the month. However, the party’s general manager, Febe Potgieter, informed party staff that their salaries would only be paid on July 6.
This past Tuesday, rumours around the party’s inability to pay its staff salaries for August resurfaced, with party leaders not forthcoming to confirm or deny the rumours.
When contacted for comment, party leaders including Magashule, his deputy Jessie Duarte and party spokesperson Pule Mabe, did not respond to questions on why the party had failed to pay its staff, IOL reported.
RAMAPHOSA PAYING ANC SALARIES?
In January this year, reports emerged that ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa was paying staff from his own pocket.
The claim that the president has had to take money out of his own pocket just to keep the party afloat is nothing short of astounding, TSA reported.
With a fortune estimated to be worth more than R500 million, Ramaphosa’s vast wealth has been seen as a short-term fix to help bury the major issues facing the ANC, who commemorated their 108th birthday this year.
“CRISIS? WHAT CRISIS?”
In January, ANC spokesperson Pule Mabe fervently denied any allegations that party coffers are empty and stressed that “isn’t a crisis” for the media to report – which conflicts with several official accounts.
“There is no crisis in the ANC and those in the employment of the party are the ones who are kept updated, not the media. The ANC does not owe an explanation to the media on how it relates to its staff; we don’t even know who among the staff told you that they were not paid because we have never had that kind of crisis.”
This isn’t the first high-profile spat the party has had had with internal non-payments. In September 2018, the ANC’s official website was taken down after they failed to pay a bill of R32.5 million. To this day, anc.org.za remains offline.
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