Mandela Funeral Funds Scandal: ANC Eeastern Cape responds to latest reports

Issued by the Office of the ANC Provincial Spokesperson, Mlibo Qoboshiyane

Recent media reports about how government spent the money allocated for activities related to the memorial and funeral services appear to be a barrage of attack against our leaders particularly the provincial Chairperson, Comrade Phumulo Masualle.

As the ANC we don’t support any form of fraud, corruption, misuse of public funds for functions they were not meant for. And we call on anyone with proper information about any incident around the usage of funds allocated for the funeral of our former President to report it to the law enforcement agencies.

We note these reports with concern. We are confident that our provincial Chairperson did no wrong with regards to the matter at issue.

Our confidence is anchored on the fact that any transaction that was done to his personal account, which was later withdrawn and re-directed to a government account.

Only an amount of R1,088.00 (One thousand and eighty eighty rands only), which has been accounted for was used for official business.

Auditors who will be auditing the usage of these funds will attest to this.

We reject the constant insinuation by some newspapers that the ANC led government blatantly disregarded existing financial management and procurement laws when procuring services around the funeral service of our former President.

The propensity of the sources used by the newspapers and their attempt to caricature our provincial Chairperson the way they did is clear opportunism of desperate proportions.

Because government has existing processes and institutions of accountability, we rely on those processes and institutions to deal with such matters and not on some unknown ghosts speaking as sources in the media with no audacity to reveal their identity for the purpose of verifying and concretizing their allegations.

The state is investigating allegations that have been raised around the funeral at issue.

We are of the view that personal interest pregnant leaky individuals masquerading as whistle blowers and media sources must not undermine this investigation with their ongoing leaky drops of documentation to the media and not to law enforcement agencies.

We decry the uninformed media frenzy against our provincial Chairperson and we deem these reports as proclivities of an unjust media trial adjudicated by uninformed Editors armed with bias and manipulated information, prosecuted by individuals inebriated by undefined personal interests.

This is an attempt to prejudice our provincial Chairperson. We will not be shocked if the peddlers of manipulated and wrong information will release another batch of manipulated information, paraded as factual information to unsuspecting Editors gullible to anything appearing to be a scoop.

It is prudent for Editors and their newspapers to regard any information they receive with caution, verify its nature and context prior to publishing such information as facts.

We appeal to the Editors to be vigilant of people who leak information to them and to act responsibly by verifying anything given to them Nicodemusly.

Ends…