ANCYL dismisses bribery claims against Maine as a ‘smear campaign’

The ANC Youth League (ANCYL) has rubbished reports that its president, Collen Maine, solicited a bribe of half a million rand from Just Coal to help the company retain a contract with Eskom as a smear campaign.

The young lions say the allegations that owners of Just Coal met with Maine in early March – where he allegedly promised a “political solution” to their impasse with Eskom and asked for R500 000 as a donation to the ANCYL – were a political ploy to tarnish their president’s reputation.

“It is quite interesting that this surfaces now if it’s not something that is politically sponsored,” league spokesperson Mlondi Mkhize told EWN.

This is despite the owner of Just Coal, Joe Singh, on Monday admitting during a radio interview to paying R500 000 to the ANCYL’s general account, with the hope that Eskom would not terminate his company’s R8-billion contract.

According to a Sunday Times report, Maine never delivered the promised “political solution”, and the contract was scrapped by the power utility.

“The ANC Youth League came to us, and said they will help me, and I said okay fine. We didn’t give it to any person in their personal capacity. I don’t feel too bad about that,” Singh told Talk Radio 702.

However, Mkhize maintained the money was a donation to the ANCYL and not a bribe.

“If then he [Singh] was bribing us, it’s unfortunate really because you can’t bribe an NGO like the ANCYL to give a contract at Eskom. There’s no one in the Youth League who works at Eskom to start with. Secondly, there’s no one who sits in any structure or board or whatever,” he said.

Mkhize failed to clarify to EWN who approached whom first for the donation.

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