ANC officials allegedly rack up R76K booze bill during birthday weekend

The City of Ekurhuleni has come out to deny allegations levelled against its MMC of human settlement, Lesiba Mpya, and chief of staff in the mayor’s office, Reckson Hasani, regarding the abuse of a government credit card on booze.

This comes a day after the ANC celebrated its 105th birthday on Sunday in Orlando Stadium in Soweto. An invoice circulating on social media indicates that at least R76 191 was spent on booze on the morning of January 8 at Sakhumzi Restaurant, which is located in Soweto.

The City of Ekurhuleni has since distanced itself from the invoice. The city says the allegations are “unfortunate” as the city apparently has “no credit cards for any executive or staff member”. The city also said Mpya and Hasani were not at Sakhumzi on January 8.

Another alleged document, also from Sakhumzi, shows packages allegedly made available to people attending the ANC event, with the most expensive such package costing R20 000, which would get you two bottles of Hennessy, six bottles of French Champagne (two of them Dom Perignon), two bottles of Belvedere Vodka and one bottle of Hendricks Gin.

“The allegations are unfortunate as the City of Ekurhuleni has no credit cards for any executive or staff member. The two public representatives of the City of Ekurhuleni further clarified that they were not at the alleged venue at that time of the morning. The two representatives were well within their rights were at the January 8 festivities and supporting the event,” the city said through a statement.

“This message was affirmed in the January 8 statement and we regret the sensationalism created around false allegations around the public representatives of the City of Ekurhuleni. As the City we remain focused on delivering service to our people and ensuring that we strive towards unity and delivering on our mandate and social contract with the people of Ekurhuleni.”

In the days leading to the ANC’s birthday celebration, the party faced allegations that it had applied to the Gauteng Liquor Board to have some of its laws relaxed on Sunday so that liquor stores could remain open for a longer time than normally allowed by law.

These allegations were, however, denied by the ANC’s head of campaigns, Fikile Mbalula, who said the party had no authority or power to influence the Liquor Board.