Unpaid debt: company applies for ANC liquidation

ANC centenary flame. Picture: Herman Verwey/City Press

A production company is taking the ANC to court over unpaid debt.

The ANC hired VWV to stage a production to mark the governing party’s 100th anniversary in January, but the rainy Bloemfontein weather scuppered the show.

The cost came to R31 million.

A rehearsal of the show Tshihumbudzo: Our Story, Our Future was broadcast on SABC later that day.

In a statement, the ANC said it had learnt today that the company had launched an application to liquidate the ANC because of the estimated R12 million that is still outstanding.

The talk of a lawsuit comes on the eve of the party’s elective conference, which is scheduled to kick off tomorrow in the Mangaung Metro.

The statement, which is drafted on behalf of ANC treasurer-general Mathews Phosa, said the company had withdrawn from a mediation process it initiated on Thursday.

Phosa said it was surprising that the company did not have insurance “to cover such events”.

The ANC also viewed “the opportunistic and sensationally unwarranted liquidation application as politically motivated and as an abuse of the court process as well as the South African media”, said the statement.

However, the statement said neither the ANC nor its attorneys had been served with court papers.

VWV CEO Mark Steinhobel said his company was not trying to interdict the conference, but was trying to get the money the ANC allegedly owes it.

Steinhobel said the case, whose court of jurisdiction he didn’t disclose, had been pending for some time. He referred City Press to a company official for more information, but the official could not be reached.