Difficult season to raise cash to pay staff, says ANC

THE ANC Treasurer-general’s office says it’s a difficult season to raise funds for the ANC to pay the salaries of stranded employees who have not been paid for months.

Keith Khoza, the adviser to Paul Mashile’s office which is responsible for the party’s finances, told the Daily News yesterday that it was a difficult season to raise funds to settle the outstanding staff salaries.

“The issue of funding is a complex one, it is difficult to raise funds looking at the season but, we will exhaust all options that are compliant with the legislation to ensure that we resolve the issue of the backlog salaries once and for all.

“We are doing everything in our power to end this challenge.”

The party has been criticised for failing to remunerate its staffers after it stated that it was broke.

Yesterday, the president of the Progressive Blacks in ICT, Dr Leon Rolls, appealed to the conscience of ANC deployees to help rescue the party from administrative collapse as a result of non-payment of salaries.

According to Rolls, the ANC had enough deployees, in and outside the country, who could help ANC employees who have gone without salaries for several months, and face the possibility of spending the festive season without their salaries.

“All that needs to happen is that those deployees contribute at least 25% of their remuneration to the ANC salary bill and, that money must be ring-fenced.

“The offices of the ANC need to put proper systems in place that improve efficiency to reduce the need for warm bodies. With the internship programmes for all political parties as part of the 1% of the contribution by the government to political parties, it should be enough to subsidise the salary bill of the party.”

Rolls accused the ANC’S National Working Committee (NWC) of failing to take responsibility or making sufficient effort to resolve the issue of payments.

“There is a possibility that politics and factions are at play. I would say the entire ANC National Executive Committee (NEC) is neglecting the issue; these are individuals in the highest decision-making body of the party in-between conferences.

“When the state-owned enterprises are in this trouble the very same NEC members disband the boards, so why not intervene in the issue which is closer to home? I think they know what needs to happen.”

Rolls said there were available solutions to the problem, and pointed out that if some NEC members could get kickbacks from companies, then they should be able to find ways to channel some monies to the purse of the party.

ANC provincial spokesperson Nhlakanipho Ntombela said that although he could not comment on the issue, he was aware that all employees in the ANC’S payroll were affected.

The ANC has been at loggerheads with its employees who have, as a last resort, downed tools in protest against the lack of remuneration.

Two hundred and forty seven staffers have not been paid their August, September and October salaries.