There can be little doubt that the donations to political parties and independent candidates should be regulated both as to their disclosure and as to the annual allowable limit per donor.
Donations to political parties can be motivated by a wish to gain favour to win lucrative government contracts, as has been the case in SA. The electorate needs to know whether this is the case and how party policies are influenced by the interests of their donors. This is called transparency and accountability. On the other hand, political parties have an interest in keeping the identity of their donors confidential as far as possible as many donors don’t want this disclosed.
The sums involved are significant. In total, from April 2021 until the end of February 2025, SA parties have disclosed receiving R825m in donations, according to data gathered by NGO My Vote Counts.
Limits are a common practice internationally and one that SA followed in 2018 with the Political Party Funding Act, which set the disclosure threshold at R100,000 and the annual single donor donation limit at R15m. These numbers, as the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) pointed out in its presentation to parliament’s home affairs committee, did not appear to be based on a clearly articulated rationale, data analysis or international comparisons.
According to the PBO’s international analysis, SA stands out as an outlier for being a middle-income country with a higher private donation upper limit than many higher-income nations, such as Poland and Mexico, where regulations impose limits based on minimum wage multiples or campaign expenditure limits. The upper limit for donations, the office suggested, should be determined using economic indicators such as GDP per capita or average income as a more objective and transparent baseline.
Yet the committee based its decision last week on the limit and threshold on the 2018 figures without probing whether they had any justification. The disclosure threshold was raised to R200,000 and the donation limit to R30m. The PBO estimated, using the 2018 figures as a basis (on the assumption that they were appropriate), that these should be between R122,000 and R174,000, and R21m, respectively, to take into account inflation.
The committee revisited the limits after the high court reinstated the original limits to address the lacuna in the Electoral Laws Amendment Bill, which did not set any limits at all but left it to the discretion of the president to unilaterally decide on them.
The president still has the power to accept or reject the committee’s latest decision if it is endorsed by the National Assembly, a power that My Vote Counts is contesting in court. One of the NGO’s other demands, which it wants the court to endorse, is the disclosure of the accumulated donations by related entities to prevent donors using various companies they own to evade the annual single donor limit.
Whether or not one supports the call for complete disclosure of donations — whatever their amount — and the identities of donors — however much they donate — one thing is clear: there needs to be much deeper consideration of the issue than was afforded it by the committee.
Given the political interests at play, this should preferably be the work of an independent panel. The mandate of the Electoral Reform Consultation Panel, which is probing SA’s electoral system, could possibly be broadened to incorporate this issue.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.