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‘CR17 millions were not used to buy votes’

AFRICAN MIRROR REPORTER

ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa has today given an insight into the millions that were pumped into an internal election campaign which ended with him being elected as president of the governing party.

Ramaphosa has flatly denied that the millions donated to his campaign were used to buy votes.

On the 2nd day of his testimony at the Zondo Commission into state capture, Ramaphosa said those who managed his campaign – generally referred to as the CR17 campaign – took a deliberate decision to keep the identity of the donors from him so that he was not beholden to those who gave money.

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“They created a wall so that donors should not think that they will get something in return. They told me that this is what they decided. They told me you are the candidate and we are the campaign managers,” he said.  

Ramaphosa conceded that he had met some of the donors at dinners, where he had to explain what his candidature of the ANC presidency stood for. 

The financing of the CR17 campaign has been the subject of an investigation by the Public Protector and several court cases. 

On allegations of vote buying, Ramaphosa said. “I would rather lose than buy votes.”

Ramaphosa said R300-m of the money raised was used for transport, t-shirts, caps, airtime and food. He said the CR17 has debts that needed to be paid.

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The ANC president said the identity of the donors was kept secret because that was the condition on which money was given to the CR17 campaign. “There was nothing sinister or underneath about the CR17 campaign,” he said.

Yesterday, Ramaphosa today said the governing party “could and should” have done more to prevent corruption under his predecessor Jacob Zuma, in highly anticipated testimony to a graft inquiry.

Ramaphosa, Zuma’s former deputy, was appearing in his capacity as current leader of the African National Congress (ANC), a rare case of a sitting president giving evidence on recent alleged wrongdoing by members of his own party.

The “state capture” inquiry is probing allegations of graft during Zuma’s nine years in power, including that Zuma allowed businessmen close to him – brothers Atul, Ajay and Rajesh Gupta – to influence policy and win lucrative government contracts.

Zuma and the Guptas have repeatedly denied the allegations against them.

Ramaphosa told the inquiry it took time for the ANC to recognise high-level corruption during the period, but that he would not try to “make excuses or to defend the indefensible”. He did not mention Zuma by name.

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“We all acknowledge that the organisation could and should have done more to prevent the abuse of power and the misappropriation of resources that defined the era of state capture,” he said.

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Ramaphosa added that “corrosive corruption” had hurt the ANC’s support among voters, six months before local government elections at which the party will look to improve on its worst election results since the end of apartheid.

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By The African Mirror

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