The ANC wants the public purse to fully fund political parties represented in Parliament and provincial legislatures, but concerns have already been raised after Treasury’s allocation more than doubled from about R167 million to R342m.
THE ANC wants the public purse to fully fund political parties represented in Parliament and provincial legislatures, but concerns have already been raised after Treasury’s allocation more than doubled from about R167 million to R342m.
The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa), in correspondence with the National Council of Provinces’ select committee on appropriations during deliberations on the 2023 Appropriation Bill last month, cautioned against increasing funding to political parties despite reductions to the budget of the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC).
”Our research and investigation over the course of a few years, together with very recent developments, have raised some concerns insofar as the matters related to funding provisions to the IEC and the Represented Political Parties Fund (RPPF).
According to Outa, the organisation noticed that under transfers and subsidies, the appropriation of R350.3m to the RPPF.
In addition, Treasury’s contribution to RPPF has increased significantly – from R149m (2018/19), R158m (2019/20), R163m (2020/21), R167m (2021/22) and a massive R342m in 2022/23, which was more than double that of the previous year (2021/22).
Outa also noted that for the 2023/24 financial year, the RPPF’s allocation is over R350.3m.
”We are concerned about this additional increase to the RPPF, which is run by the IEC, especially in light of the recent budget cuts experienced by the IEC itself,” Outa’s parliamentary engagement and research manager Rachel Fischer explained to the committee.
The organisation said that based on its research and the IEC’s annual reports, the commission had experienced budget adjustments of R278.5m in 2022/23, over R240m in the current financial year (2023/24) as well as R251m for 2024/25, which is a total of nearly R770m.
”The IEC is integral to ensuring free and fair elections, safeguarding the principles of security and safety within the electoral life cycle, as well as promoting voter awareness and encouraging the public to register and vote. The IEC should get more funding allocations, not political parties. We kindly request you to consider Outa’s submission as it speaks to the concerns in light of the national and provincial elections in 2024,”
However, Outa’s fears are not shared by the governing party, whose treasurer-general, Dr Gwen Ramokgopa, has called for political parties to be funded fully from the public purse.
She said the Party Political Funding Act, which was promulgated in 2021 to regulate public and private funding of political parties, has had unintended consequences that can be attended to with urgency.
”We are in full support of the aims of the act to promote greater transparency and accountability. But we want an increase to limits in the act. One other issue is that the act is administratively demanding, and some donors find it very difficult to donate because of this,” Ramokgopa explained.
In terms of the act, political parties are not allowed to accept donations from individuals or entities of more than R15m within a financial year.
The act also stipulates that political parties can accept donations from foreign entities up to R5m within a financial year only for training or skills development of their members and policy development.
Following its recent treasurers’ training programme targeting provincial and regional treasurers in conjunction with the OR Tambo School of Leadership, Ramokgopa said the ANC needed to fully fund the coming national and provincial elections.
She also expressed her confidence that the ANC was stabilising its finances after years of struggling and is now paying its long-suffering staff on time, has entered into various agreements with some of its creditors and was processing the December 2022 national conference resolution to increase membership fees.
