Delegates at Nasrec were a ‘jukebox machine’, says Shivambu

Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) deputy president Floyd Shivambu took to Twitter to express the view that “basically, delegates to the 54th conference were treated like a jukebox machine”.

Shivambu is referring to the conference at Nasrec in 2017 which resulted in President Cyril Ramaphosa becoming president of the ANC.

The EFF second-in-command was reacting to the ongoing sharing of leaked emails and bank statements from Ramaphosa’s succesful CR17 campaign.

The party’s secretary general, Godrich Gardee, meanwhile, accused publication The Daily Maverick of hiring “confirmed paid” journalists as “politicians-hired guns-soldiers of fortune-mercenaries discrediting” the EFF and propping up “those who opposed to expropriation of land without compensation, nationalization of mines and [SA Reserve Bank] and government worker insourcing”.

READ MORE: Mbalula and Kodwa got payments from CR17 campaign – report

This follows the naming of journalists paid by the CR17 campaign, one of which, Oliver Meth, confirmed that he was paid as a “media consultant on the campaign”, adding that he can’t say more due to having signed a non-disclosure agreement.

A Google search shows that Meth has written only two articles in The Daily Maverick. Ironically, one of which did not praise Ramaphosa but rather accused the president’s jobs summit of “locking out” South Africa’s youth.

A second article, written in collaboration with Busisiwe Seabe, is on the #FeesMustFall movement and the departure of Blade Nzimande as Minister of Higher Education.

His biography on the publication is transparent about the fact he was a “communications consultant” for the CR17 campaign.

So basically, Delegates to the 54th Conference were treated like a Jukebox machine?

— Floyd Shivambu (@FloydShivambu) August 18, 2019

Confirmed-paid journalist of @dailymaverick are politicians-hired guns-soldiers of fortune-mercenaries discrediting @EFFSouthAfrica & prop up those who opposed to expropriation of land without compensation, nationalization of mines & @SAReserveBank & government worker insourcing pic.twitter.com/V5kSvH0J62

— Godrich Gardee (@GardeeGodrich) August 18, 2019

Leaked emails from the CR17 campaign were first mentioned by News24 in a story which included names of potential donors, appeared to show the involvement of Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan in the campaign, and seemed to show that Ramaphosa’s claim that he was not involved in the running of the campaign or aware of its donors was at least partially untrue.

Then, in a Sunday Independent article titled “How the CR17 campaign funds were channelled”, it was reported that the publication had seen the campaign’s bank records, as well as emails and financial statements which identified the beneficiaries of the “R1 billion” campaign fund, who according to the story were “politicians, campaign managers, and strategists” who “earned millions for their roles in Ramaphosa’s” successful CR17 campaign for the ANC presidency.

READ MORE: Why Mkhwebane’s ‘rogue unit’ report is deeply flawed

The report alleged that some of Ramaphosa’s main funders were numerous wealthy businesspeople, including mining magnate Nicky Oppenheimer, who reportedly gave R10 million; Pick n Pay founder Raymond Ackerman, who gave R1 million; and eNCA founder, director and owner of Hosken Consolidated Investments Johnny Copelyn, who donated an alleged R2 million on behalf of the news channel. Former Absa CEO Maria Ramos was another alleged donor.

The article was co-written by a trio that included Piet Rampedi and Mzilikazi wa Afrika – two of the journalists behind now-discredited Sunday Times reports on the so-called Sars “rogue unit”. They both parted ways with the Sunday Times after these reports were retracted and apologised for when the media ombudsman found them to be “inaccurate, misleading, and unfair”.

(Compiled by Daniel Friedman)

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