Ezulweni Investments has pursued the ANC to pay it for election banners and other campaign material featuring President Cyril Ramaphosa, which helped clinch a win for the party in the 2019 election. These materials are a lynchpin asset for ANC campaigns.
But the ANC failed to pay the company.
Ezulweni is a small Newcastle-based company which has now secured three attachment orders against the ANC. Its owners incurred debt to quickly produce the party’s banners before the 2019 election. The homes of several employees have been attached, and it owes local and Chinese suppliers.
Ezulweni attached the party’s bank account in December 2020 and lifted the order pending settlement talks. When the talks failed, the ANC attempted to appeal against the September 2020 judgment which found that the party owed the company R102-million, plus interest and costs.
That debt has since escalated to R150-million, the value of the third writ of attachment granted on 26 May once interest is calculated. Legal fees will be layered on top of that.
In April 2021, the ANC was granted leave to appeal, but then botched proceedings every step of the way, according to an affidavit filed to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) by Shafiq Sarlie, attorney for the media company.
Its appeal lapsed on 4 April, according to a letter from the registrar. The ANC is applying to the SCA to reinstate an application.
If Ezulweni acts on its attachment writ, the ANC will likely seek and be granted an urgent stay of execution of asset attachment pending the SCA’s decision.
“The ANC’s concession that it has been ‘unduly tardy’ is noted. This, I submit, has been the hallmark of its conduct from the inception of proceedings nearly four years ago,” says Sarlie’s affidavit.
In March this year, the ANC terminated its relationship with MNS Attorneys days ahead of its deadline in the appeal court. Sarlie’s affidavit says this was an “unsurprising and deliberate step” and the “oldest trick (to delay proceedings) in the book”.
ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula alleged fraud and said the party would lay criminal charges. He did not say against whom and what the fraud entailed.
Daily Maverick’s Ray Mahlaka reported on the party’s R200-million debt in 2021.
Read more in Daily Maverick: The ANC, a tax evader? Massive debt, unpaid salaries, dry donation taps
The party’s website crashed when it failed to pay a service provider, and its archive is now hosted on a different domain name. In 2021 and 2022, staff held regular protests at Luthuli House for unpaid salaries, UIF and pension contributions.
Nonkululeko Njilo reports that this is what Mbalula said about the judgment and latest writ at a press conference on 31 May:
“Myself and the general manager have not received any application to attach, but should that happen, we will challenge that. We have appealed in the Supreme Court of Appeal in terms of this judgment of Ezulwini,” said Mbalula.
“It is a fraudulent matter… we are going to open a case with the law enforcement agencies that this matter must be investigated and necessary steps must be taken to deal with it. We have taken steps to deal with the matter quietly in terms of investigations and everything in our power to deal with this matter.
“It is a big concern to us that we could get to this stage where the courts have ruled against us, and give these people the possibility that they have a case of R102-million.
“How could we have given one person R102-million in the campaign of the election for things that you yourselves have not seen in the streets… then our campaign would have been ‘wow’ if we spent R102-million on billboards or anything of that sort. We are struggling… where would we get R102 million?
“It is a disaster that you can get people coming together and using the law to trick the ANC in the manner in which this thing has happened, and it is very clear that they couldn’t do this thing alone.
“It was done in collusion, clearly, with our staff, which we need to take steps equally with those who have aided this criminal activity,” said Mbalula. DM
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South Africa
Elections material company gets a third writ of attachment against ANC, this time for R150-million
The ANC has been slapped with a third writ of attachment for an unpaid debt of R150m to a small media company that produces its election paraphernalia.
