By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has revealed that 14 political parties have declared receiving donations for the first quarter of the 2024/2025 financial year.
This covered the period between 1 April and 30 June.
Since the Political Party Funding Act was signed into law in April 2021, political parties must declare any donations over R100,000.
This is the first political funding report published by the IEC since the formation of the seventh democratic administration.
Thus, a total of R189,950,829 in donations were declared between April and June 2024.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) leads the way in donations received with R56 million, followed by the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) with R38 million, RISE Mzansi with R33 million, and the African National Congress (ANC) with R26 million.
It is important to note that “this declaration report is issued against a legislative environment wherein the Party Funding Act was amended,” said the IEC.
It set a R15 million annual donation limit of a single entity to a political party within a financial year and the R100,000 disclosure threshold.
The Electoral Matters Amendment Act 14 of 2024, signed on 08 May 2024, eliminated donation the disclosure thresholds for political parties and candidates, creating a lacuna for several months.
Additionally, the IEC said that on 31 July 2024, the National Party Liaison Committee (NPLC) decided that political parties would still declare donations according to pre-amendment limits, despite the lack of legal thresholds.
“As at the date of this publication, the lacuna regarding the disclosure limits and thresholds have been removed because of the Western Cape High Court judgement of 16 August 2024 which provided that the pre-amended thresholds are to be utilised pending the determination of new thresholds,” added the IEC.
If this was fully complied to is unknown, given that the lacuna temporarily took away the legal requirement for parties and independents to do so.