Johannesburg - Home Affairs Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi has been tasked with reviewing the Political Party Funding Act passed only four years ago as the cash-strapped ANC continues to struggle financially.
This was revealed by ANC national executive committee (NEC) member Joe Maswanganyi in Mangaung yesterday.
“The minister of home affairs has been given this responsibility to look at the possibility of amending the Political Party Funding Act,” he said early on Friday morning while reporting on the deliberations and resolutions of the final leg of the governing party’s national conference.
The former transport minister added that the review of the legislation would not be in a manner that the ANC will shut down transparency, which the act was promulgated to achieve.
“We can’t (prevent transparency) because if the money comes from the state we have to account to the public. It’s taxpayers’ money, but it can’t be in a manner that is repulsive to other sources that we were receiving money from,” Maswanganyi said.
The act, signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa in January 2019, states that all donations to political parties above R100 000 must be disclosed to the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) and limits donations from foreign entities to R5 million within a financial year.
He admitted that it has been tough for the ANC to raise money due to the act as it made it “very difficult for some of those who have been funding the ANC to continue to donate money and with the limit of foreign funders”.
”Let it be clear that we do not want secrecy in terms of funding, but we are saying that let it be conducive that in the manner that it is used that it doesn’t place too much burden on donors to political parties to the extent that it disincentivises them to continue to donate to the ANC and other political parties,” said Maswanganyi.
He said it was a conference resolution that the state should be able to fully fund the activities of political parties.
”Though it (Political Party Funding Act) has some good intentions of openness but it has unintended consequences where most of our conventional donors are no longer prepared to fund political parties because of the challenges of the Political Party Funding Act,” Maswanganyi stated.
In his explanation, he said the ANC and other political parties represented in Parliament must campaign for increases in their allocation and that Parliament itself should also be able to provide more funds.
The ANC also admitted that its failure to pay its employees’ salaries was a major concern.
”It’s not only about financing the staff, the administration, but we have so many programmes that we run in communities and that come with a lot of financial costs.
“You know we have been facing lots of challenges, more especially in the previous year with regards to paying the staff salaries,” Maswanganyi said.
Over the past number of years the ANC has repeatedly failed to pay salaries and benefits due to its staff, but has been able to scramble resources to keep up over the festive season to help ensure that its national conference proceeded smoothly.
”We are looking at internal measures like the membership fee, which to a certain extent, we might increase. For now it’s R20 a year. We have not taken a final decision today, conference has delegated the NEC to look at reviewing the membership fee,” Maswanganyi said.