By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) says only two political parties declared their funding during the fourth quarter of the 2021 to 2022 financial year as it records the lowest value of donations and declarations.
The African National Congress (ANC) received R10 million and the Democratic Alliance (DA) R2.5 million.
Parties are compelled to submit information related to donations accepted over a certain period in line with the Political Party Funding Act.
While the IEC has not raised serious concern over the lack of declarations, chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo observed that the fourth quarter declarations were – by far – the least, both in terms of value of donations and the number of parties making declarations.
For the first time, only two political parties made declarations and the total value of donations was below R30 million, which was – until now – the least amount declared in a quarter.
“Noting that the fourth quarter disclosure period was immediately after the local government elections, it appears that there is a nexus between the number and total value of donations and the election cycle. The more imminent the elections, the more likely that parties will receive significant donations.”
So far, the ANC and DA have been the only parties to declare their donations in every quarter. The EFF has only declared donations for the first and last time in the previous quarter, while this is the first time newcomers ActionSA have failed to make any declarations.
Mamabolo said that another emerging feature of the party funding disclosure regime was that political parties – with the highest representation in the national and provincial legislatures – appeared more likely to receive donations on a regular basis than those with lower representation, the ANC and the DA being typical in this regard.
Each quarter of the financial year, since the enactment of the act, parties must report all donations over R100 000 to the IEC, whether in cash, in kind, or both. The R100 000 is a total amount (multiple donations from the same entity are added together, and must be declared immediately when the total value reaches R100 000).
According to a statement released by the IEC on Monday, the DA declared an in-kind donation of R 786 152.81 from the German foundation, Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF).
All of the DA’s declared donations, except for one, were received from foreign donors – the FNF and Danish Liberal Democracy Programme (DLDP). The combined value of these foreign donations is R 2 405 387.72, constituting 95% of the total value of donations declared by the DA during the fourth quarter.
Of this amount, the FNF donated R1 713 250.80 and the DLDP donated R 692 136.92.
Considering that each of these foreign donors have made repeated donations to one political party, the commission said it found it necessary to consider the cumulative value of all donations over the financial year under review.
The commission can, therefore, confirm that all the foreign donations declared by the DA were fully compliant with the Act, in that they fall within the R5 million ceiling per donor. Furthermore, the donated funds were utilised for activities falling within the ambit of the law, namely – policy development, training and skills development of members of the political party,” the IEC statement read.