Media guru claims ANC’s ‘black ops’ team also approached him

As the row continues over allegations that the ANC funded a secret campaign team during last year’s municipal polls to “disempower” DA and EFF election campaigns, media consultant Chris Vick on Tuesday claimed that he was also asked if he would take money for tweets and retweets to promote the party on social media.

Vick took to Twitter amid to furore alleging that he was approached to be a promoter in the project, but he declined the offer and said it appeared to be very disorganised.

I was "approached". I declined. https://t.co/Zm4hp6urCl

— Chris Vick (@chrisvick3) January 24, 2017

They were complete amateurs. We didn't get into detail – just that they would pay for tweets and retweets. I don't roll that way. https://t.co/2Nj5dfnQRn

— Chris Vick (@chrisvick3) January 24, 2017

On Tuesday, public relations consultant Sihle Bolani applied for an urgent court order at the Johannesburg High Court, claiming that the governing party owed her company, Sihle Bolani Communications, R2.2 million for the services it rendered to it before the elections.

Her case has exposed allegations about the ANC plot, which has been denied by the party, to undermine the opposition’s election campaigns by apparently using fake posters and ‘influencers’ on social media, collectively known as ‘paid Twitter’, through a covert Media Advisory Team initially known as ‘War Room’.

Despite the denials from the ANC, the party’s general manager Ignatius Jacobs said in court documents, in response to the application, that the businesswoman was just a volunteer, but documents reveal that he undertook to pay her R1 million nonetheless.

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An EFF elections poster allegedly manufactured by the so-called “War Room”.

She said there was no way she would have been involved in the alleged fake Twitter conversations and television programme organised to allegedly undermine the two parties.

“I’m advisor to the ANC in Gauteng, not the ANC national. Whatever it is that may or may not have happened is not something I would have been involved in because I don’t advise the national ANC,” she said.