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Johannesburg - Opposition parties are up in arms over reports that the ANC is aggressively campaigning senior civil servants to help keep the party afloat by asking them to agree to monthly deductions from their bank accounts.
According to the Sunday Times, a letter asks director-generals to contribute R3 700 a month.
The ANC’s move could be in contravention of public service regulations, which stipulates that civil servants should serve the public in an unbiased and impartial manner.
However, not all ANC deployees are in favour of this move with one stating that it was acceptable for MPs and councillors to be expected to contribute monthly to the party, but not public servants.
Questions were also raised by some as to what would happen to their jobs if they chose not to donate money.
Contributions not for government jobs - Mkhize
Meanwhile, the ANC’s treasurer general Zweli Mkhize said on Wednesday that the party is a donor-driven organisation but levies and contributions are not paid to the party in return for government jobs.
"The African National Congress categorically rejects any attempt to link voluntary and unconditional financial contributions by members, supporters, and sympathisers of the ANC to the acquisition or retention of any jobs in the public sector.
"Donations to the ANC are not transactional. Anyone who contributes to the organisation cannot expect anything, nor do they contribute in exchange of anything," he said.
The ANC had received reports from a number of its members that the media had been calling with questions on the donations they made in their individual capacity.
He said the questions seemed to be designed to "intimate that members" of the ANC who were civil servants were paying levies to the party to obtain or retain their "deployment" in government.
Voluntary
Members, supporters, and sympathisers of the ANC contributed voluntarily and unconditionally, he said.
Contributions and donations were the ANC's main source of funding.
"There are many other people who approach the organisation of their own volition to make contributions and others who when approached by the organisation to contribute decline to do so," he said.
"Government has clear policies and processes guiding human capital attraction, retention, and management within the civil service. Nowhere is a contribution to the ANC a requirement for employment."
People could donate through many mediums, including direct deposits and online transfers.
