Read: Mayor’s ‘shocking’ letter intended to procure state funds for ANC’s 2016 election campaign

It’s gone bonkers on social media and, well, here’s the infamous letter doing the rounds at the moment. Signed and sealed by Beaufort West’s controversial Mayor – he was previously accused of soliciting sex from underage girls – and sent to the Construction, Education and Training Authority (C-SETA) who is planning on building a new training centre in Beaufort West.

What peeved Prince off was that C-SETA wants to use its own, transparent procurement processes in the awarding of tenders, which doesn’t sit right with the ANC in the area.

Here’s a copy of the signed letter Prince sent to C-SETA, but if you’re in a hurry here are a few paragraphs highlighted from it where Prince clearly instructs the organisation – run on taxpayer’s money – to help the party out.

“We are an ANC led municipality, we are therefore in need of financial injection for our 2016 Local Government Election campaign and therefore will also want to see construction companies sympathetic and having a relationship with the ANC to benefit in order for these companies to inject funds in our election campaign process.

”We are seeing this project as a mechanism that will help us regain lost ground to the opposition towards our campaigns, we therefore would want to see our own construction companies constructing this centre, construction companies who would create local jobs and have the money revolve around our people.

“We do believe that as cadres and activists yourselves, you would understand why we would want to manage the procurement process ourselves, obviously with your people also being involved in bid adjudication processes.

“We are as a municipality pleading for your understanding in this regard and see the importance of allowing us to manage the procurement processes using our supply chain processes.”

True to form Helen Zille caught wind of it before almost everyone else and, after a lengthy post outlining her thoughts on this obvious corruption, she finished off with a few choice words on the matter.

“In plain language Mayor Prince is saying:  The ANC needs money for its 2016 election campaign to prevent the DA taking over Beaufort West.  They therefore need to control municipal procurement to ensure that companies that get the contracts are ANC-aligned and willing to give us a significant cash injection for the ANC election campaign.”

Zille added that she has written to finance minister Pravin Gordhan about this and will be “watching with interest what will happen to Truman Prince.”

Oh and as you could imagine; Twitter wasn’t too happy either:

FYI: CSM and Good Governance & Integrity Team @PublicProtector https://t.co/aZ9GyTnxjZ

— Adv Thuli Madonsela (@ThuliMadonsela3) January 26, 2016