funding Campaign trails with state means

• Author: Thabo Makwakwa thabo.makwakwa@inl.co.za
• Published date: 22 October 2021
• Publication title: Daily News

Professors Dirk Kotze and Tumi Senokoane have said that although it was not desirable to abuse state resources during elections, it was always difficult to separate the resources of the state as state officials would use resources such as state vehicles to travel during elections.

Kotze said that it was not supposed to be done as these were resources funded by taxpayers, but this was something that happened in every part of the world.

“Unfortunately, this happens everywhere – presidents use state planes and vehicles to attend to their own political interests and this is not uniquely South African. Government leaders use state infrastructure to promote their campaigns during elections.

“At the same time, when it comes to government programmes, projects such as housing or government initiatives and what is used as being projects of government are launched or announced during elections.”

Kotze said there was always going to be an overlap as the government of the day would launch public money to implement projects during election campaigns. “That is an advantage of being in a governing party because you have more resources available to you compared to opposition parties. It is not supposed to happen, but that is the advantage of being in government as they have control over any project and decide when to deliver it.”

Senokoane argued that the concept of “service delivery” was problematic as it assumed that the only relationship that existed between...