JOHANNESBURG – The ANC came under fire over its “wrong priorities” for having allocated R27 million to political parties in the Eastern Cape legislature.
It rejected the criticism, however, saying that the allocation, provided for in the Adjustments Appropriation Bill 2011, was standard practice and would benefit all parties.
Opposition parties charged that the ANC, which would receive the largest share of the cash, had “wrong priorities” in the face of “so many service delivery failures in the province”.
They rejected the money, saying the allocation was an “immoral Christmas bonus” and had been meant to coincide with the “ANC centenary celebration”.
ANC chief whip in the Bisho legislature, Humphrey Maxegwana dismissed the charge.
“We are putting the money to good use so that people know what government is doing,” he said yesterday, adding that the money would go towards public education, so that “people are aware of laws and able to take part in the democratic process”.
Democratic Alliance (DA) leader in the legislature, Bobby Stevenson, said: “We need to be fixing our schools, fixing our hospitals and roads before we allocate additional funds to political parties.”
Congress of the People (COPE) chief whip, Nkhosinathi Kuluta, said the allocation was “simply immoral”.
“Money should be channelled into service delivery. You have health facilities without drugs. Priorities for the ruling party are very wrong,” he said.
The DA believed that the money should have gone to the Provincial Revenue Fund, “where it can be used for urgent service delivery problems in the province”.
– musam@citizen.co.za
Leave a Reply