ANC promises to pay staff outstanding salaries after threat to disrupt policy conference

The African National Congress (ANC) has given assurances to its disgruntled staff members that it will soon pay their outstanding staff salaries.

ANC staff salaries

ANC employees on Monday staged pickets at various party offices across the country over unpaid salaries for two months.

The workers threatened to disrupt the governing party’s national policy conference this weekend in Nasrec, south of Johannesburg, if the ANC does not pay them their salaries.

According to reports, the ANC has not paid staff their salaries for June and July this year.

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This is not the first time party employees have been angered by the non-payment of salaries and other benefits, they embarked on similar protests last year and earlier this year.

Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu, a member of the ANC’s finance committee, on Tuesday, gave assurances that the outstanding staff salaries would be soon paid. However, Zulu could not commit to when exactly the money would be paid.

“We are pleading with our comrades to understand that there’s nobody who wouldn’t want to pay them. It’s just a question of the calculations and where we get the money to do that.

“We are doing everything we can to make sure they do get the money and they will be paid once we get the money,” Zulu said in an interview with eNCA.

Financial contributions

Zulu said she was aware that ANC treasurer general Paul Mashatile was doing everything in his power to make sure party employees do get their salaries.

She said party members were paying for the party’s operations, including the upcoming national policy conference, through monthly financial contributions.

“We’re now paying ourselves for going to the policy conference because we must appreciate and realise that the ANC doesn’t have a factory where it goes and gets the money. The money must come from us as members.”

The ANC’s 6th National Policy Conference is set to take place from 29 to 31 July.

‘It’s a money issue’

Zulu blamed the Political Party Funding Act for the ANC’s financial struggles. She said that the party was receiving money from Parliament, but this was not enough for political parties to pay staff salaries and ensure all other organisational operations were properly paid for.

“It’s a money issue and it’s also a planning issue of making sure that we get the resources from ourselves because we cannot rely on outsiders,” she said.

To deal with the ANC’s cash flow problems, Zulu said the party’s national executive committee (NEC) members were paying R6 500 on a monthly basis to ensure that salaries and other obligations were paid.

She said this included all of the ANC’s mayors and premiers.

“It took us long to do that and I think we should have done that a long time ago, and probably we should have invested a little bit better.”

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