African National Congress (ANC) secretary general Gwede Mantashe has again denied that the party got money from a Prasa contractor who won the bid to supply the controversial Afro4000 locomotives.

"We never received the R80m," Mantashe told News24 on Friday.

Auswell Mashaba, MD of the Swifambo Rail Leasing, claims in an affidavit that he first paid R14.3 million into an account of a lawyer who had introduced himself as a fundraiser for the ANC.

This was the first of several payments totalling R80 million that Mashaba said he made to George Sabelo, the ANC-linked lawyer, and Maria Gomes, an Angolan citizen who calls herself a friend of President Jacob Zuma.

The details are contained in Mashaba’s latest court filings in the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa’s court bid to have the contract with Swifambo set aside.

Mashaba denies that the payments he’d made to Sabelo and Gomes were linked to the Prasa contract. Mantashe said the man who claims to be an ANC fundraiser must show proof that the money ended up at Luthuli House.

"The man who says he collected it (the money) for us, maybe he has the money. It can't be our money if it never arrived at the ANC," Mantashe said.

Mantashe said the party had said the same, when News24 first reported the story.

"News24, you are repeating the story again, but there is no R80 million. We made the point then that we never got the money. It is not the ANC that is in court," he said.

News24 reported earlier that the chronology of the events around Swifambo’s first payment from Prasa, and Mashaba’s subsequent payments to Sabelo and Gomes, casts doubt over Mashaba’s claims.