SA’s political party funding regime has weaknesses

My Vote Counts (MVC) says the annual political party funding report by the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) has revealed weaknesses in the country’s political party funding regime.

The nonprofit organisation said their analysis demonstrated that while a lot more is known about party funding compared to four years ago, there are still many legislative gaps and implementation issues that must be remedied before SA has a more transparent and accountable party funding system.

According to a report published by the IEC in April, SA’s political parties received R3,2bn in private and public funding in the 2023/24 financial year, an increase of R2,3bn from the previous year.

The significant loans which were granted to the EFF, Rise Mzansi, ActionSA and the ANC should not go unnoticed either,
— MVC

The ANC received R1,7bn, the DA R645m and the EFF R310m.

“While the ANC received more private funding than any other party, this was not due to donations — an alarming proportion of the ANC’s private funding is categorised as ‘other income’, leaving the public largely in the dark about the sources of its private funds,” MVC said. .

“The significant loans which were granted to the EFF, Rise Mzansi, ActionSA and the ANC should not go unnoticed either,” MVC said.

According to MVC, threats remained to a more transparent and accountable political funding regime.

“We only know about the sources of approximately a third of parties’ private funding, and we have almost no information about parties’ lending activities, ‘other income’ streams, and spending habits (only expenditure of the IEC allocation is required to be disclosed),” it said.

“Not only does this limit our ability to monitor and mitigate the influence of private interests on our politics, but it also precludes us from critically evaluating our current model of political funding, and its suitability for the South African context.”

MVC said now that President Cyril Ramaphosa had signed a proclamation to double the disclosure threshold and upper donations cap to R200,000 and R30m respectively, the country was at “risk of returning to an era of greater secrecy in party funding”.

“MVC’s analysis and the IEC’s report underscore just how far we have to go in efforts to develop a regulatory system that limits the influence of money over our politics and ensures greater transparency in political funding.”

In April, the Western Cape high court dismissed an application by MVC challenging the constitutionality of the Political Funding Act.

Sowetan’s sister publication TimesLIVE previously reported that when the application was initiated in 2023, a political party could not accept a donation from a person or entity in excess of R15m in a financial year. A political party was also obliged to disclose to the IEC all donations above R100,000 a year.

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