Governing party says talks with Enoch Godongwana ’quite positive for next year’.
ANC TREASURER-general Paul Mashatile has revealed that the governing party was in talks with Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana to increase the government’s funding of political parties and was optimistic its request would be granted.
Speaking on Sunday outside the home of late ANC MP and former Ekurhuleni mayor Duma Nkosi, who died of cancer on Thursday, Mashatile said there were solutions the party is working on for the future.
“One, we have requested the government to consider party funding, we have engaged with the Minister of Finance and their teams. The response has been quite positive for next year but we obviously have to survive until the end of this financial year, which is March, and we will have to continue, basically, go and talk to the private sector organisations,” he said.
The ANC received R89.8 million from the represented political party fund, which is administered by the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) on behalf of parties with members in the national and provincial legislatures.
Mashatile’s announcement comes as the ANC’s employees are facing a bleak Christmas after the party again failed to pay their salaries for more than three months.
He promised that the ANC will continue to take care of its staff.
“We are making arrangements that they should receive something before Christmas,” Mashatile undertook.
The former Cabinet minister and erstwhile Gauteng premier also said as part of raising funds the cash-strapped ANC has asked its own members to contribute by launching a crowd funding initiative.
“We’ve also asked our members to contribute through levies and they have been doing it very well. All the ministers of the ANC, MPs, councillors, mayors contribute to the ANC,” said Mashatile.
He reiterated that the challenge the ANC has is that 70% of its income comes from the private sector and once there was a law that requires disclosure many people have since pulled back.
Mashatile was referring to the Political Party Funding Act, which came into effect on April 1, which makes it mandatory for registered political parties to disclose all donations of more than R100,000 to the IEC.
”So we struggled to raise funds,” he admitted, adding that the ANC was a big organisation and the resources it is able to raise are always not enough.
– POLITICAL BUREAU
