Msimanga targets ANC for R10m IDs ‘splurge’

TAXPAYERS in Tshwane footed a R10-million bill to help ANC supporters apply for ID cards on the eve of the August elections.

Mayor Solly Msimanga made the allegation this week and said he had instituted an investigation into a unit set up in the mayor’s office by Kgosientso Ramokgopa, his predecessor, to help ANC supporters get ID cards.

Msimanga’s spokesman, Matthew Gerstner, said Ramokgopa had hired 379 people to go to ANC strongholds to find out who needed IDs. The municipality paid for the costs associated with applying for IDs.

Msimanga claimed that the unit’s mandate was to assist those in poor and rural parts of the capital to get ID cards from the Department of Home Affairs.

He alleged this was an attempt by Ramokgopa to bolster the ANC’s chances of retaining the metro using municipal resources.

The programme cost the municipality R10-million and ran a few days before the poll.

“So it’s quite clear in my mind that the mayor’s office sent staff paid by the city into ANC stronghold areas to get them IDs, when they didn’t have IDs, and to pay for IDs out of city resources and then to ensure people had IDs,” Gerstner said.

“It’s absolutely not the business of local government to help people apply for ID cards.”

He said the staff used for the programme were registered as Extended Public Works Programme employees, a poverty alleviation programme.

“This, to me, looked like a continuation of patronage to these people,” Gerstner said.

But Tshwane ANC regional secretary Paul Mojapelo dismissed the allegation as DA propaganda. “Let them investigate . . . why don’t they go to the police to report the matter if it is criminal or fraud?”

The ANC and the DA in Tshwane have been involved in ugly exchanges since the poll.

When Msimanga took over, he filed criminal complaints against officials for alleged corruption.

The ANC said it was planning to file a complaint with the public protector against Msimanga for appointing senior officials without following due process.

Ramokgopa said this was one of many accusations made by the DA that could not be proved. “They have discovered running a city is not a bed of roses.”

Meanwhile, the DA has said it inherited a “bloated” public service in Tshwane — the mayor’s office alone had 915 employees.

After the party’s federal executive meeting this weekend, leader Mmusi Maimane told the media the DA had found cadre deployment in many of the municipalities it had taken over: 240 of those working in the mayor’s office in Tshwane were ANC branch chairs. However, the ANC has only 107 branches in Tshwane.