The High Court in Johannesburg on Monday dismissed the urgency of the lawsuit against the ANC for money it supposedly owed a public relations practitioner, for work done as part of a "covert" campaign, the party said.
ANC spokesperson Zizi Kodwa said the court had dismissed the urgent application with costs.
"If she decides to take it further, we’ll prove on merit that she has not done any work for the ANC," he said.
AmaBhungane reported earlier that according to court papers, the ANC had planned to spend R50m on a covert campaign targeting opposition parties during last year’s local government elections, and that it owed money for this.
Public relations practitioner Sihle Bolani brought the case against the party, saying she was owed R2.2m for work done as part of the campaign. She represented her company before the urgent court application on Tuesday‚ saying she could not afford lawyers.
Judge Leonie Windell told Bolani that she had to show the court that the matter was so urgent that it could not be dealt with in ordinary course. "The reasons you have given are not sufficient to enable the court to deal with the matter on an urgent basis‚" Windell said.
Bolani had signed a R1m settlement agreement with the ANC’s Ignatius Jacobs in early December, but was now demanding the full amount as she had not been paid, AmaBhungane reported.
The ANC, however, denied that there was such a campaign or that it owed anyone money, and said it had been vindicated by the high court on Monday.
"The ANC has always been, and remains, committed to running clean campaigns in all the elections we have participated in since 1994," spokesperson Zizi Kodwa said in a statement.
"This is because of our utmost confidence in the superiority of the ideas of the ANC, working with our people, to improve their lives for the better."
He said the ANC did not need, or ever used, any clandestine "black ops" to woo voters.
The party’s electoral support declined eight percentage points in the August municipal elections, and resulted in the party’s losing control of three of the countries metros to the DA: Johannesburg, Tshwane and Nelson Mandela Bay.
AmaBhungane reported that according to the court papers, a covert team, initially known as the war room, was intended to "disempower" the DA and EFF’s campaigns.
The group, which was reportedly later known as the "media advisory team", was to be led by Shaka Sisulu and ANC-linked businessperson Joseph Nkadimeng, to source funds from private donors.
Kodwa denied that Sisulu or Nkadimeng were mandated by the ANC to do such work.
"Their activities were not sanctioned by the ANC and consequently, we distance ourselves against any insinuation that any such campaign was known to, or approved by, the ANC," he said.
TMG Digital
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