Chancellor House/Azot Fertiliser Deal Stinks

Farrel — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 15:19:00 -0500

Funding a political party in South Africa is an expensive business. It’s estimated the ANC spent R100 million alone in the last national elections which is much much more than the amount the ANC earns from it’s members, who pay R12 a year in membership dues. We know political parties receive funding from other sources particularly massive donations, such as the R25 million given to the ANC (and R500 000 to the DA) by Brett Kebble. Because SA has no laws requiring political parties to disclose their funding, which both the ANC and DA prefer for differing reasons, we have no real idea of exactly who is secretly buying favour.

Which is why the $2 billion deal between SA’s Chancellor House and Russia’s Azot to build a new fertiliser plant in SA stinks to high heaven and it’s definitely not due to the fertiliser. Chancellor House was originally uncovered as an ANC fundraising front by the Mail & Guardian and the Financial Mail covered them in January and found them to be a particularly shady one at that. Even ANC Secretary General Kgalema Motlanthe was unaware of their presence but later admitted to it’s role as an “ANC vehicle”.

Now this deal stinks because it the first deal to emerge from the newly established SA-Russia Business Council and coincidentally this deal involves a company that does not only have close ties to the ANC, it is for all intents and purposes the ANC itself. ANC PR spokesman Smuts Ngonyama has denied that there is anything suspicious about the deal and claims that Chancellor House has nothing to do with the ANC despite Motlanthe’s earlier admission about Chancellor House.

Politics.za: Chancellor House/Azot Fertiliser Deal Stinks

Chancellor House/Azot Fertiliser Deal Stinks