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Lance Greyling, the ID Spokesperson for Energy says the latest comments by the ANC Secretary-General Gwede Mantashe on his party's shares in Hitachi Power Africa, ‘show the depths to which the ANC's morality has sunk.

‘Once again Mantashe is trying to defend the indefensible,' Mr Greyling says.

‘His suggestion that it is a misnomer to say that the ANC is benefiting from the deal with Eskom, as it is only investing in Hitachi, which is an international company, is ridiculous, as are his comments that the misnomer is that Eskom's tariff increases mean that the service provider will get some increase, but in fact there was a set contract between the two companies already, which would not be affected by such increases.'

The ID, which first raised the issue in January this year, wrote to the World Bank a month ago requesting that it withhold the requested Eskom loan until the ANC had divested its shares.

‘Mantashe's argument is completely disingenuous and neatly avoids a number of crucial facts,' says Greyling.

‘Firstly, the electricity price increases are being awarded almost entirely to fund the building of the Medupi coal-fired power station. Without these increases, Eskom would be unable to build this power station and the R39 billion contract that Hitachi has to supply boilers for it would not be honoured.

‘The ANC would therefore not enjoy the benefit of its R5 billion windfall through its 25% stake in Hitachi by way of Chancellor House,' Greyling says.

‘This same logic applies to the loan that Eskom has requested from the World Bank. The bulk of this money will go towards funding the building of Medupi power station, which in effect means that a large proportion of it will be paid over to Hitachi Power Africa and indeed, Mantashe's very own ANC.

‘The World Bank loan will therefore inadvertently be funding a massive conflict of interest where the ruling party is able to benefit handsomely from a Government tender,' says Greyling.

‘This is why I wrote to the World Bank a month ago. For these efforts to ensure that good governance practices are upheld in South Africa, I was accused by the Minister of Energy Dipou Peters as being "unpatriotic".

‘The behaviour of the ANC in this matter has been extremely disappointing and they have sunk to new lows in their attempts to avoid doing the right thing,' Greyling says.

‘Even their own Treasurer-General Matthews Phosa recognised the blatant conflict of interest in this matter and gave a guarantee two years ago that Chancellor House would transparently divest its shares in Hitachi Power Africa. Once again the ANC has failed to live up to its word.'

In reaction to Mantashe's statement that, "If there are rules it must apply to all political parties," Greyling says the ID fully concurs with this sentiment.

‘However, I would like to point out to Mantashe for the umpteenth time that the reason that there are no rules on party political funding is because the ANC has resisted any attempts to institute such legislation.

‘This is despite their assurance to the High Court six years ago that they would soon be bringing such legislation to Parliament. Instead of doing this they have consistently blocked the ID's longstanding motion to set up an ad-hoc committee to devise party funding legislation,' says Greyling.

‘The ID has also recently submitted a proposal to the Speaker's office for the establishment of such a committee to be placed on the agenda of the next joint rules committee. I think based on its history it would probably be utterly vain to hope that the ANC wwill finally support our years-long motion.

‘Finally, the ID rejects Mantashe's statement that there was no conflict of interest in this Government tender. The Public Protector's report, which the ID ensured was finally tabled in Parliament two weeks ago, clearly finds a conflict of interest and puts forward a number of recommendations,' Greyling says.

‘If anyone is being unpatriotic then it is Mantashe and the ANC, both of whom are putting their own interests before those of our country. It is therefore a special kind of mischievousness when the ANC questions my own patriotism.

‘As somebody once said, patriotism doesn't mean defending your Government, it means defending your people from its Government. Sadly, this issue more than any other clearly demonstrates that sentiment,' says Greyling.