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DA complains ANC abusing state money for election campaign

DA leader Helen Zille
DA leader Helen Zille

The DA legal team will on Monday write to President Jacob Zuma requesting he stop "abuse" of public money for the ANC's election campaign, the party said.

"The DA's legal team will write to the relevant Ministers and to President Jacob Zuma, as the head of government, requesting that the relevant departments stop abusing public resources... immediately, failing which we will approach the High Court for an interdict against President Zuma as the head of the national executive," DA leader Helen Zille told a media briefing in Cape Town.

Zille listed various instances that she believed were attempts by government departments to use taxpayers' money to assist the ruling party in its campaign before the May 7 elections.

"Over the past weeks, the DA has been gathering evidence of a co-ordinated effort by several government departments to spend hundreds of millions of rand to assist the ANC's election campaign," she said.

This included the distribution of food parcels by the social development department.

The department of agriculture's Fetsa Tlala (End Hunger) campaign --which has received a budgetary allocation of nearly R2 billion -- was also highlighted.

"Fetsa Tlala... has received an enormous budgetary allocation of nearly R2 billion, and so far there is very little to show for it," Zille said.

"DA activists and branches around the country have reported that ANC activists are distributing tens of thousands of Fetsa Tlala T-shirts to the public."

Excessive spending on advertising by government departments was listed as another example where the ANC could possibly be furthering its election campaign.

"Any reader of national newspapers, and any motorist on Gauteng's highways, will have noticed the enormous increase in government advertising over the last few months," Zille said.

"In Gauteng, dozens of new billboards on major highways purport to share information about service delivery, but are designed in clear ANC colours and all carrying only slightly edited versions of the ANC's election slogans."

The Public Protector has been approached to investigate in all the reported cases where the DA believes state money is being abused for electioneering purposes.

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