DA calls for audit of Cuba-loan

16 May 2022

Note to Editors: Please find attached English and Afrikaans soundbites by Willem Faber MP.

The DA will write to the Auditor-General of South Africa (AG), Tsakani Maluleke, to request an urgent audit of the ANC government’s loan to Cuba.

In answer to a written parliamentary question from the DA, President Cyril Ramaphosa revealed that a total of R147 631 000 has been loaned to Cuba since 2018, in a deal a deal set up by former President Jacob Zuma in 2010 after his state visit to the country. Of the more than R147 million loaned to Cuba, more than R63 million has been paid back.

But the DA has serious concerns regarding this loan – not least of which is the fact that it is fiscally very irresponsible for South Africa to loan money to any country. We have one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, and our economy is in tatters after the severe mismanagement of the Covid-pandemic and years of State capture, looting and corruption by the governing party and almost all connected with them. The ANC government’s justification of this loan, as well as its intention to spend a further R50 million in aid to Cuba, is reprehensible.

More than a thousand children have died due to malnutrition in South Africa in 2021/22, and instead of addressing food security and poverty here, the ANC government is giving away money we don’t have.

The DA will ask the AG to also investigate whether the Cuba-loan agreement and the R50 million “donation” – which the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Naledi Pandor, have since stated would be given as food – could possibly be a money-laundering scheme where the money lands back with the ANC. The ANC government has proven that there is no scheme to foul to feed their greed.

Issued by Willem Faber, DA Member of the Portfolio Committee on International Relations and Cooperation, 16 May 2022