ANC ponders way to cut debt
• Properties abroad to be sold, but not Lusaka office
The ANC is considering the sale of some of its noncore assets, including certain commercial properties at home and abroad, to lighten its huge debt burden.
The party is cash-strapped and often fails to pay taxes and salaries. This has put it in the crosshairs of the SA Revenue Service and the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA).
Its financial difficulties come just as the party moves to reposition itself as steward of a wellrun country ahead of its internal leadership contest in December, after almost two years of failure to pay workers’ salaries totalling an estimated R17m due to its dire financial situation.
In August, its financial woes worsened when the FSCA ordered the ANC staff provident fund to compel the party to settle about R86m in accumulated contribution arrears that it owes fund members.
The debt-cutting proposal was presented to the ANC’s national executive committee (NEC) by treasurer-general and aspirant deputy president Paul Mashatile at its three-day meeting at the weekend. The NEC is the ANC’s highest decisionmaking body between national conferences, which are held every five years.
“There are properties in other countries that we feel we will not need to use anymore and those will be sold off. And there are other assets we would still keep in foreign countries that are of historic and political value today,” Mashatile told reporters on Monday.
Without saying how much money the ANC seeks to raise, Mashatile said it would keep its headquarters in the Zambian capital Lusaka and in the UK.
Properties remaining in the portfolio will be consolidated and managed under one company yet to be registered.
“The consolidation of properties is not a fundraising drive. It’s looking at whether the properties still add value in what we’re doing and whether others have historic sentimental value to be kept,” Mashatile said.
“So, you might find that some of those that we sell will not really give us much. But, we may come to the conclusion that we’re not deriving anything from them, maybe somebody can find them to use and let’s dispose of them,” he said.
The ANC has blamed the Party Political Funding Act for its cash-flow woes. It came into effect in April 2021, requires disclosure of all donations of more than R100,000, and limits donors to R15m a year.
The act is aimed at providing transparency regarding funds received by political parties from donors.
Recently, the ANC, which declared that it received a R10m donation in the first quarter of 2022, missed the deadline to declare that donation by a month, prompting the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) to issue the party with a directive to explain the contravention.
The party was given seven days to submit such a representation, failing which the IEC may impose a sanction on the ANC.
“That has created a lot of constraint on our fundraising effort. We have since asked the minister [of home affairs] to look at amending that we have presented our proposals,” the treasurer-general said.
“However, our efforts at fundraising have not died completely. It is difficult, but we are surviving. We have paid all our staff to date, and we will pay them this month and next month and the other month.”