My Vote Counts (MVC) said on Thursday that secrecy in political funding promotes political corruption and influence peddling, noting that it will urge President Cyril Ramaphosa to reject a National Assembly report supporting the increase of the donation limit and the yearly disclosure threshold for political party funding.

MVC argues that the report on the Political Funding Act (PFA), from the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs, was arrived at “irrationally” and is unconstitutional.

The MVC said apart from uMkhonto weSizwe Party, African Transformation Movement, Al Jamah-ah, and Build One South Africa, all parties adopted the report to increase the annual disclosure threshold from R100 000 to R200 000, and the annual upper donation limit from R15-mllion to R30-million.

“If signed into law by the President, this will mean that parties will be able to accept secret donations in higher amounts, up to R200 000, and a single donor can use their financial muscle to donate up to R30-million a year to a party and may make donations within this limit to as many parties as they choose,” it said.

MVC pointed out that these two limits were central to the law, and whether they were lowered, maintained, or increased had a material impact on the law’s effectiveness and strength. 

It believes that the National Assembly voted in favour of “watering down” the law’s effectiveness, supposedly by increasing secrecy and decreasing accountability in the private funding of politics.

“For now, the limits remain unchanged. It is the President who has the legal power to make their final determination and until then, the R100 000 and R15-million limits remain in place,” the MVC pointed out.

The MVC highlighted that on Tuesday, Home Affairs Portfolio Committee chairperson Mosa Chabane explained to the National Assembly that the approach adopted by the portfolio committee was based on inflation.

He said the committee used an inflation-adjusted recalculation of the threshold, premised on the assumption that the initial threshold figures were deemed reasonable.

“But this is simply untrue,” the MVC stated.

It believes that the National Assembly will adopt the report, but argued several other significant issues relating to party funding raised during the meeting.

“These included the formula for public funding allocations; the State’s inability to properly fund political parties; the power of the President to determine the two limits; compliance with the law; and the capacity of the Independent Electoral Commission to enforce the law,” it said.

MVC said it was also awaiting judgment in the matter in the Western Cape High Court that was heard in February, in which it challenged various aspects of the PFA.

These, it said included the irrationality of the two limits and the power of the President to have the final say in setting the limits.

“If needed, we will embark on further litigation to ensure the law is constitutional,” MVC pointed out.