ANC asks would-be MPs to snitch on comrades
● The ANC wants its candidates for parliament to snitch on their comrades as part of the vetting process of potential MPs.
According to a vetting form, which the Sunday Times has seen, the party wants candidates to out colleagues who are corrupt, who manipulate membership lists or buy members, who leak to the media, or who are blatant factionalists.
Luthuli House is due to complete the screening of those who have been nominated to its lists this week.
The form reads: “Do you know any comrade who is guilty of the following: corruption, leakage of information, factionalism, tampering with membership and/or buying of membership?
“Has any person or comrade accused you of the above and why?”
In addition, the ANC asked candidates if they had received any “large” amounts of money or gifts and whether they had declared them.
The party requires candidates to list monthly expenditures, including school fees, and give details of their spouses’ income.
Luthuli House wants to know if candidates have been involved in a tender process; consulted a neurologist, psychiatrist or psychologist; or have suffered any illness.
Candidates are also expected to disclose if they have previous criminal convictions, and if so must give full details, and must say if they are being investigated for an offence. They don’t need to list their traffic fines.
The vetting process is an attempt by the ANC to panel-beat its dented image after a
Do you know any comrade who is guilty of the following …?
series of allegations against its current and former leaders.
A storm has erupted over testimony at the Zondo commission that senior ANC leaders, including former president Jacob Zuma, environmental affairs minister Nomvula Mokonyane and senior MP Vincent Smith, were on the payroll of Bosasa. The company, headed by Gavin Watson, is also said to have made a donation to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s campaign to become ANC president.
ANC acting spokesperson Zizi Kodwa said the party was in the final stages of the candidate-screening process.
“At the moment we are busy with the vetting. During the period of the ANC lekgotla, I also get vetted by submitting forms and that process is ongoing.”
He said the vetting process needed to be carried out in line with the rules and regulations of the Independent Electoral Commission.
“Subsequent to that, [we] vet against the guidelines of the ANC, in terms of what we set ourselves as the kind of public representative who must represent the ANC.”
Kodwa said the national list committee would look at a number of lists, including those for the provinces, to check that they met the guidelines set out by the national executive committee.
He said the Western Cape list did not meet requirements for a representational demographic spread, and the Gauteng list was not sufficiently nonracial in character. These lists had been sent back for “balancing”.
In 2014, candidates were asked if they were taking drugs, involved in gambling, seeing a therapist or in a “platonic” relationship with a member of an opposition party.