Johannesburg – The Democratic Alliance has called on the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) to clarify why the government is donating a whopping R50 million to Cuba.
On Wednesday, Deputy Minister of DIRCO Alvin Botes informed the Portfolio Committee on International Relations and Cooperation about the donation, saying the money forms part of initiatives the country has undertaken as it seeks to strengthen relations with other countries.
“I thought it is important that the parliamentary committee gets briefed about the fact that we have committed to allocating an amount of R50 million for special intervention purposes as it relates to the Cuban people, who have experienced food security challenges, because of the sanctions levelled against the people of Cuba by the United States of America,” Botes told the committee.
The announcement has since outraged the DA and many other concerned South Africans. Reacting to Botes’ revelation, the DA was clearly perplexed as the party sought answers on why the ANC government thought it appropriate to shower Cuba with such large sums of money.
“The ANC appears to be going out of its way to find new means to splurge money on Cuba.
“Over the past decade, the ANC government has spent R1.4 billion just on agreements with the Cuban government to employ Cuban workers and service providers in South Africa. Money that could’ve been spent on creating job opportunities and alleviating food security issues back home,” said DA Member of Parliament Willem Faber in a statement on Thursday.
Faber said the government should explain where the donation comes from and how they will account for every cent spent by the Cubans.
According to Faber, this was not the first donation to the Cubans. Faber feels it was time an independent audit was done “to ascertain exactly how much money has been donated and loaned to Cuba, the purposes of the loans, and how much has been paid back and written off. Particular attention must be paid to the African Renaissance and International Cooperation Fund (ARF), which was established to support development in African nations, and may have been previously used as a Cuban ATM”.
“In April 2021, Ipsos reported that ‘more than 40% of South Africans of all age groups were affected by hunger. While South Africans are literally starving, and the desperation is increasing with the rising cost of living, the ANC government sees fit to donate R50 million to Cuba, supposedly to address the malnutrition there. If the Cuban government is anything like its South African counterpart, the Cuban people would be lucky if they saw a single crumb,” said Faber.
“It should come as no surprise that their Cuban comrades take precedent over South Africans. After all, the ANC government continues to prize Cuban doctors, teachers, and engineers above their more than qualified South African counterparts. In a country where the unemployment rate is staggering and perpetually on the increase, the ANC government would rather pay tribute to its obsession by employing a handful of Cubans above the hundreds of qualified South Africans able to do the job.
“With President Cyril Ramaphosa admitting on tape that taxpayer money is abused for ANC benefit, the fact that South Africans are once again kicked when they are down to benefit Cuba is a sad state of affairs,” he added.
Faber also added that the country cannot afford to donate R50 million to Cuba, saying the money should, instead, be used to address socio-economic problems in the country.
“South Africa is drowning in debt, mismanagement, and corruption, and the ANC government would rather throw our life raft to their Cuban crushes than kick free of the undertow,” he concluded.
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