National Assembly approves annual limit for private political funding
The House has approved doubling the annual limit for private political funding and the threshold for declaring these donations.
The National Assembly sat for the tabling of the national budget in Parliament on 19 February 2025. The Budget Speech was postponed at the eleventh hour. Picture: Parliament
CAPE TOWN - Smaller political parties have taken potshots at their bigger counterparts in the National Assembly on Tuesday as the thorny issue of donor funding once again touched several nerves.
President Cyril Ramaphosa's sealed presidential campaign accounts, the theft of money from his Phala Phala farm and the unexplained funding for lavish party conferences and election campaigns were drawn into the debate.
The House has approved doubling the annual limit for private political funding and the threshold for declaring these donations.
Following the debate, Ramaphosa will be asked to raise the annual donation limit to political parties and independent candidates to R30 million, while also doubling the threshold for declaring such funding to R200,000.
This follows another court challenge by lobby group, My Vote Counts, last year after parliament removed the limit and threshold just before the May 2024 elections.
READ: My Vote Counts argues the president accorded too much power to determine party donation limits
The MK Party's Sihle Ngubane said the auditing of funding has to extend beyond party bank accounts.
"The Phala Phala scandal is not just a tale of theft. It's a symbol of what happens when power is placed above accountability."
ActionSA's Lerato Ngobeni, meanwhile, slammed the Electoral Commission's inability to monitor compliance with the regulations.
She's questioned how the African National Congress (ANC) was able to settle multi-million rand debts in 2023 when it only disclosed R10 million in donations.
"As for the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), how as a party run a R100 million campaign, while only disclosing R3.5-million?"
Ngobeni has also questioned the MK Party's declaration of less than half a million rand when compared to expenditure on its 2024 election campaign.]
ActionSA, the African Transformation Movement, Al Jama-ah, and Build One South Africa all rejected the recommendations to amend the donation limit.