The ANC must pay a company that did branding for its 2019 election campaign materials, the SCA has ruled.

• The ANC has lost another appeal application against KwaZulu-Natal branding company Ezulweni Investments in a R102 million lawsuit. 
• Ezulweni successfully proved in the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg, and now the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA), that it is owed more than R100 million by the financially crippled governing party. 
• The SCA said on Friday that the ANC’s appeal had failed with costs. 

The ANC has again failed to convince the court that it is not liable for a R102 million debt owed to a KwaZulu-Natal branding company for its 2019 general election campaign materials.  

On Friday, the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) issued a judgment in an appeal application brought by the ANC to prove that it did not have a contractual agreement with Ezulweni Investments.

On 23 May, the ANC was issued a writ by the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg which ordered the “execution of movable goods of the debtor, the ANC, at Luthuli House to cause the realisation, by public auction, of R102 465 000, together with the interest of 10.25% per annum from 9 May 2019 to 31 August 2020”. 

Before the matter was heard by the SCA, Ezulweni won two cases against the ANC: The first being the main application seeking R102 465 000 in 2020 and the second an appeal in 2022. 

The company argued that the ANC owed it money after it supplied the party with campaign materials ahead of the 2019 election.  

The agreement stemmed from discussions between the company’s owner, Renash Ramdas, and two ANC staffers. 

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During court proceedings, Ramdas, who called himself a lifelong ANC supporter, produced text messages proving that there was a contractual agreement between Ezulweni and the ANC.

He even cited a meeting held with former ANC treasurer-general Paul Mashatile and the ANC staffers at a hotel in Ekurhuleni, in February 2019. 

In May, ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula said the ANC saw this case as an example of fraud. He was the ANC’s head of elections when the contract was agreed to.

On Friday, the SCA ruled that the ANC’s appeal should be dismissed with the costs of two counsels.  

The party had failed to convince the court that there were factual disputes which interfered with the substance of its contract with Ezulweni.  

Another point raised by the party was that one of the ANC staffers who was cited as a negotiator with Ezulweni was not authorised to conclude agreements on behalf of the party. 

The court said the ANC didn’t prove this as fact.

The ANC had also attempted to introduce new evidence from a report compiled by ENS Forensics to prove corrupt intent and the overinflation of prices by Ezulweni.

However, the report was neither signed nor dated by ENS, which the SCA said was strange and queried why the party never argued this evidence at the high court. The court also found that the evidence did not meet standard requirements.  

“The further evidence sought to be introduced was the forensic report and findings prepared by ENS Forensics (Pty) Ltd, which investigated the procurement process involving the two parties. The report itself was not put up in the papers. Only the executive summary was put up.

READ | We don’t owe R102m, this is fraud, says Fikile Mbalula on ANC asset attachment order

“The summary was neither signed nor dated, and the author was not identified in the founding affidavit. Neither the author nor the persons to whom statements in the report were attributed put up affidavits confirming those statements.  

“These factors present insuperable difficulties in the way of the application to admit the report as evidence on appeal on each of the three requirements. All of this means that the case mounted by the ANC for the admission of this evidence on appeal fell woefully short of the accepted test. For these reasons, the order was made dismissing the application with costs,” the SCA judgment reads.