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Johannesburg - A reported networking lounge at the 2007 ANC national conference could set taxpayers back by up to R40m, the Democratic Alliance said on Monday.
DA national spokesperson Donald Lee was responding to media reports on Monday that big business is to fork out R5m for a seat on the sidelines of the ANC's national conference next month.
"The ANC has abused its position as the governing party before to undermine the separation between party and State and, in the process, poured millions of rands of taxpayers' money into its party coffers," Lee said in a statement.
He said at the ANC's 2002 conference in Stellenbosch, 11 of the 29 organisations that paid to exhibit and to gain access to the conference "networking lounge" were either national government departments or public entities.
Not unusual
"Given that 30 'businesses' are reported to have paid R5m each to secure' their place in the networking lounge at the 2007 ANC conference, representation from national government departments and State-owned enterprises similar to 2002 could set the taxpayer back up to R40m," said Lee.
He said such a situation would show that the ANC prioritised its own interests as a party above those of the public.
"It would also be completely contrary to Finance Minister Trevor Manuel's recent instruction to national government departments to make R2.3bn in "efficiency" savings over the next financial year."
Lee said the party would be submitting parliamentary questions to probe whether any applications for exhibition or networking opportunities had been solicited from departments or entities by any ANC conference organisers or their contractors.
Questions would also probe whether any applications were made and if so, how much was paid for the opportunity.
On Monday, the Business Day reported that 30 businesses had applied for a stall in the ANC's network lounge, a luxury tent, with alcohol and cigars on offer, and which is mere metres away from the ANC's main plenary hall.
Project organiser Nic Wolpe said the space was a lobbying environment that was commercialised, the Johannesburg financial daily said.
"The ANC leadership can interact with business in an informal alliance -it's not unusual in Britain or US politics," he said.
Wolpe ran the ANC's network lounge through his company Ukwande at the party's 2002 national conference in Stellenbosch, but was coy about how much ended up in ANC coffers.