As the legal challenge to have certain parts of the Political Party Funding Act (PPFA) declared unconstitutional went ahead, the Western Cape High Court has granted ActionSA leave to intervene as a respondent.
Non-profit organisation, My Vote Counts, are seeking to amend the PPFA, so that it provided for the disclosure of all private donations, not only those above R100 000, among others.
They argue that the PPFA fails to require political parties to disclose all private donations, as “it fails to adequately impose controls on the private funding of political parties”.
They further submit that the act fails to safeguard against the threat of corruption and ultimately state capture.
“Without full transparency and full disclosure of all private donations to political parties, voters are unable properly to assess the influence exerted by private interests over political parties and cast an informed vote,” they said.
ActionSA were on Tuesday successful in the high court, to intervene as a respondent, and have until October 19 to file its answering affidavit.
“The applicant is granted leave to intervene,” Judge Monde Samela ruled.
Action SA national chairperson, Michael Beaumont said: “This move to remove disclosure limits will also throttle crowd funding initiatives by requiring the collection of multiple datapoints on every donor even when donating micro donations that could not reasonably be considered a threat to buying influence in a political party.”
ActionSA said it would propose that the Independent Electoral Commission establish a compliance unit to investigate allegations of non-compliance and that the Electoral Court be mandated to hear cases.
They will also propose that viewing access is granted to all political party bank accounts so that disclosures are not made on the volition of the party in question.
Cape Times