Lobby group the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (Casac) has urged Parliament to move quickly to approve the long-awaited Political Party Funding Bill in its current form.
The organisation said it was crucial that the bill becomes law before the 2019 elections to ensure fairness and transparency in politics.
Civil-society organisations have long called for Parliament to enact legislation regulating party funding, in line with AU, UN and other transparency anticorruption codes that SA has ratified.
They have argued that the lack of regulation provided ample opportunity for unethical and dishonest donors to peddle influence in policy formulation and to meddle in politics.
Earlier in 2018, the National Assembly approved the Political Party Funding Bill and referred it to the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) for consideration.
In his submission to ad hoc committee in the NCOP on Wednesday, Casac’s Prof Richard Calland described the bill as an "excellent piece of legislation and a product of an excellent parliamentary process".
Calland said the bill advances the principle of openness and transparency, and should proceed without amendment.
"Why the urgency? There is a general election [next year]… it is important that the bill is passed before the campaign season begins," he said.
He highlighted some of the "excellent" aspects of the bill, including the dual disclosure regime. This would mean that donors, not just political parties, would have the burden of disclosing their identities and the contributions they make to political organisations.
"Very few other countries have gone this far," said Calland.
Donors who want to remain anonymous would have the option of contributing to a multiparty democracy fund. The Draft Political Party Funding Bill provides for the establishment of two funds, to be run by the Electoral Commission of SA, for political parties, but it does not cover municipal government.
A represented political parties’ fund will cater for political parties represented in Parliament and provincial legislatures with money appropriated by Parliament. A multiparty democracy fund would accept funds from private sources for political parties that are represented in Parliament and provincial legislatures.
The bill also includes a ban on donations from foreign sources and a requirement for parties to disclose all donations above a R100,000 threshold.
Calland said the R100,000 threshold should perhaps be lowered to R50,000.
Lobby group, My Vote Counts, called for a number of amendments to the bill. It said, among others, the local government sphere must be included to receive funding from the Multi-Party Democracy Fund; the allocation formula of the fund should be changed so that 50% is distributed proportionally and 50% equitably; and to not allow donors who donate to the fund to retain anonymity.
Cosatu also called for various amendments, including the disclosure of any amount that a party received, even if it’s as low as 5 cents. It said the R100,000 threshold for disclosure was arbitrary.
"Persons can easily circumvent this arbitrary amount by making donations of for example R99,999 repeatedly to a political party. The party would then be under no legal obligation to make such disclosures to the commission," the union federation said.
The Right2Know campaign called for a clause to be included banning donors from doing business with the state. It said this was one of the biggest drivers of corruption.
In a parallel process in March, My Vote Counts appeared before the Constitutional Court for the confirmation hearing of the High Court in Cape Town judgment on the constitutionality of the Promotion of Access to Information Act (Paia) regarding access to information about the private funding of political parties and independent candidates.
Late in 2017, the High Court ordered Parliament to amend Paia to allow for the disclosure of private political party funding information. The High Court gave Parliament 18 months to correct the inconsistencies in Paia. However, because the High Court order concerns the constitutional validity of an act of Parliament, the order has no force until it has been confirmed by the Constitutional Court. The justice minister was the only opposing party. The Constitutional Court reserved judgment on the matter.
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