DA leader Mmusi Maimane making a speech in the Northern Cape with some KFC, which was there to demonstrate a point, rather than simply being his lunch. Picture: Screenshot.
The DA is currently campaigning in the Northern Cape, where the party’s leader, Mmusi Maimane, led a march to the Northern Cape Premier’s Office, alongside DA premier candidate for the province, Andrew Louw.
The party mentioned a range of issues as reasons for the march, including figures saying that over 40% of people in the Northern Cape are unemployed.
Outside the Northern Cape Premier Sylvia Lucas’s window, Maimane made a speech, saying the province deserved a government that made sure “lights stay on, the water comes, and that there is no corruption”. The main talking point in the speech, though, involved a 2013 incident involving Lucas and a whole lot of KFC.
With a KFC meal in his hands as a prop, the DA leader addressed the crowd: “Fellow South Africans, I came here today with this KFC. This premier here spent R50,000 on KFC from taxpayers’ money. Imagine how many bursaries we could have given to young people for that R50,000,” he said.
READ MORE: SA shocked by failing EC municipality where manager spent R90K on KFC
Lucas was bust for using a government credit card to rack up this gargantuan fried chicken bill during her first ten weeks of office back in 2013. A spokesperson for the premier’s office, Monwabisi Nkompela, boldly told The Mail & Guardian that the whole thing was no big deal, “not excessive”, and “totally blown out of proportion” at the time.
The KFC bill makes Lucas only the ANC’s second-highest spender at the chicken chain. A report by Carte Blanche in July last year found that an Eastern Cape municipal manager, Chris Magwangqana, spent R90,000 on KFC as “catering” within a few days of his appointment, which he defended to interviewer Derek Watts as not being significant because the municipality had spent more money on service delivery.
It is not clear whether Maimane ate the KFC he brought or gave it away following the speech.
The DA also delivered a memorandum to the office of the premier.
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