ANC attack Winde over US travel

On October 12, 2025, the Western Cape branch of the ANC accused Premier Alan Winde of breaching the legislature’s code of conduct by failing to declare sponsored travel to the United States in 2024. The ANC, led by Khalid Sayed in the Provincial Parliament, demanded a formal investigation, framing the omission as evidence of hypocrisy in the DA’s proclaimed commitment to transparent governance.

The trip in question was for Winde’s participation in Climate Week NYC 2024, held in New York from September 22 to 25, 2024. His flight tickets were funded by the Under2 Coalition, an international network of subnational governments promoting climate action and emissions reduction, of which the Western Cape is a member. The sponsorship was recorded in the Department of the Premier’s 2024/2025 Annual Report, a routine transparency document, but Winde did not register it in the Western Cape Provincial Legislature’s Register of Members’ Interests. This register, mandated by the legislature’s code of conduct, requires members to disclose all gifts, sponsorships, or benefits, including sponsored travel, to prevent perceptions of conflicts of interest or undue influence.

The ANC, through Sayed, contends that this omission constitutes a “serious” ethical lapse and has vowed to refer the matter to the Registrar of Members’ Interests for investigation. A substantiated breach could lead to sanctions, ranging from a formal reprimand to further ethics review, though penalties are typically modest. Sayed’s statement, issued on October 12, said, “This failure to disclose raises concerns about whether the DA-led provincial government’s claims of clean and accountable governance exist only on paper, while compliance in practice is neglected.”

Winde’s international engagements have repeatedly drawn scrutiny from the ANC. In 2023, the ANC criticised Winde’s US trip to lobby for the renewal of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a US trade pact critical for South African exports, alleging he overstepped provincial authority and bypassed the national Department of International Relations and Cooperation. In 2024, a separate R1.6 million taxpayer-funded US trip prompted ANC legislator Cameron Dugmore to accuse Winde of evasive conduct. The 2024 Climate Week trip, however, was privately sponsored, shifting the focus to procedural disclosure rather than public expenditure.

Winde, known for his strategy of seeking provincial-level trade deals with foreign countries, independent of Pretoria’s trade policy (including a September 2025 US trip securing R15.5 billion in trade commitments), has not faced prior ethics violations. The Under2 Coalition, tied to reputable institutions like the United Nations and World Bank, is not implicated in any impropriety beyond the sponsorship itself.

Winde’s office has issued no public response yet, possibly awaiting internal legal review, though equally likely because of the lack of significance in the ANC’s accusations. The ANC’s promised letter to the Registrar is pending, and no formal investigation has been confirmed. Should the probe proceed, outcomes may include a public apology or minor sanction, but the DA’s strong legislative majority (42 of 42 seats as of 2024) makes significant political fallout unlikely. 

This episode demonstrates an increasingly weak and lazy opposition with little creativity in their approach to countering DA dominance in the province. The ANC and their splinter parties have all been on a steady decline for the past decade, falling collectively to around a quarter of the provincial vote.