“We’ve received a report on the finances of the elections. I can tell you that we didn’t spend a billion [rand]. We didn’t spend half a billion,” Mantashe told reporters in Pretoria at the conclusion of the party’s four-days national executive committee meeting.

“I want to leave it at that. We didn’t spend a billion on these elections. If there is somebody walking around thinking that we spent a billion because somebody said so, we want to apologise to that person. We didn’t spend a billion, we didn’t even spend half of it, but we spent a lot of money in the elections.”

ANC head of campaigns, Nomvula Mokonyane, reportedly said the governing party spent more than R1 billion in the campaign process ahead of the tightly-contested polls.

Mokonyane, also an NEC member, reportedly said that whopping amount, which attracted criticism against the ANC, was spent on holding rallies, paying volunteers, buying T-shirts, and preparing candidate lists.

ANA