ANC’s funding dilemma
GARETH VAN ONSELEN: The ANC’s despot donors
After two decades, the ruling party’s thinking on how to raise money has turned full circle — with some odious contributors along the way
In 1997, the ANC made a fundamental change to the way it went about raising money for its political operations. Today, 20 years later, awareness of that decision is critical to understanding the party’s contemporary organisational culture and the problems that flow from it. But the moment of the decision also seems to have served as something of a fulcrum and, today, the ANC is swinging back to its approach of the early 1990s. From its unbanning in 1990 through to 1997, the ANC was heavily reliant on funding from foreign governments and regimes. In the financial report then treasurer-general Makhenkesi Stofile presented to the ANC’s 1997 national conference, he put it like this: "The ANC had largely depended on friendly countries and institutions for its funds. Most of these donors were in foreign lands. The 1994 elections created the perception or expectation that a ruling party had access to the country's resources. Also, the purpose for which we were funded, to defeat apartheid, ...
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