AfriForum questions government’s planned donation to Cuba

AfriForum today in a lawyer’s letter to the Department of International Relations and Cooperation demanded a written explanation and reasons for the announcement that the government wants to allocate R50 million as a donation to Cuba.

In the letter AfriForum demands that no funds be transferred to Cuba since no reasons for this decision have been communicated to the public. The organisation’s letter further demands an explanation of where the funds for this donation come from and how it can be justified in South Africa’s current socio-economic context.

The announcement of this donation is the latest scandal in the infamous recent history of cooperation between the ANC government and Cuba. During the COVID-19 pandemic the media reported that Cuban doctors have been deployed at great expense to fight the pandemic in South Africa, while many local medical workers remained unemployed. In addition, R260 million worth of COVID-19 medicine, which had been illegally imported by the South African army, had to be returned to Cuba.

“The donation to Cuba is an insult to the South African public who have been greatly impacted financially by the pandemic and have been suffering from the ANC’s mismanagement and corruption for decades. It especially shows that the ANC cares more about ideologically enhancing its image than the interest of its own citizens,” says Reiner Duvenage, Campaigns Officer for Strategy and Content at AfriForum.

“South-Africa’s own citizens are dying of starvation yet the ANC finds it appropriate to donate much needed funds to Cuba. Only a party that is drunk on power and has completely lost touch with reality would dare to subject its citizens to such an insult,” Duvenage concludes.

AfriForum gives the Department until 11 February 2022 to respond to the letter and will take further steps if the Department fails to provide feedback.