It is abuse of power and resources

The use of a taxpayer-funded SA National Defence Force aircraft by ANC officials on a trip to Zimbabwe is abuse of power and state resources.

The ruling party’s delegation, which included secretary-general Ace Magashule, former minister Nomvula Mokonyane and head of the NEC subcommittee on economic transformation Enock Godongwana, used the plane alongside defence minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, who went to the neighbouring country on state business. It has emerged the ANC top officials did not have travel permits for the jamboree.

Mapisa-Nqakula’s meeting with Zimbabwe’s defence and war veterans minister Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri reportedly took less than an hour. On Friday, President Cyril Ramaphosa demanded a report on the trip from Mapisa-Nqakula.

The country is on level 2 of the lockdown that is aimed at containing the spread of Covid-19, international borders are not open; ordinary citizens like Magashule can travel out of the country only after permission has been granted by the minister of transport for the plane to leave.

Those on the trip were also required to self-isolate for 10 days after returning home but our sister newspaper, Sunday Times, reported that only two of them had been in quarantine.

The ANC has claimed that the trip was in the national interest and that there was not abuse of funds, but why were political party officials who are not in government representing the state?

As for breach of lockdown regulations, we cannot have a government that sets rules for ordinary citizens but fails to hold cabinet ministers and the ruling party elite accountable for failing to uphold the same.

We call for action to be taken against the members of the delegation who left the country without proper authorisation and added salt to the injury by not quarantining on their return.

We are also waiting with bated breath for Mapisa-Nqakula’s report to the president on the trip. As citizens of this country we deserve to know why public funds were spent on ANC officials.

Surely the ruling party knows the difference between political party and state resources. Why this embarrassment then?