Port Elizabeth - A legal fight over party funding is on the cards following an NGO dragging political parties and President Jacob Zuma to the high court to disclose the funders of parties.
My Vote Counts, backed by the Right2Know campaign has lodged an application in the Western Cape High Court to declare the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) invalid and unconstitutional.
Adv. Gregory Solik, who is a board member of My Vote Counts, said on Thursday that the application was not urgent, but they wanted to force Parliament to change the PAIA legislation to force parties to disclose their funders.
My Vote Counts coordinator Janine Ogle said the court challenge followed a Constitutional Court judgment last October that they must challenge the validity of the PAIA legislation in court.
Ogle and Solik said the Constitutional Court directed them to the High Court to get the legislation reviewed. This was because the law was not forcing parties to disclose their funders.
In the founding affidavit, Ogle said funding of parties was shrouded in secrecy making it difficult for voters to make informed decisions on which parties to vote for.
She said voters had a right to know who was backing their parties financially.
“There can be no doubt that the identity of private donors and the amounts which they contribute provide important information about a party’s interests, allegiances and likely behaviour,” Ogle said in the papers.
“Financial backing may also have a corrosive influence on good governance and promote corrupt relationships, especially where information about the funding of political parties and independent candidates is withheld,” said Ogle.
She said the funding issue has to be resolved in the court because the legislation in its current form was unable to do so.
Karabo Rajuili of R2K said the country was littered with a number of cases involving corruption of businesspeople with political parties and the state.
She said state capture was one of the leading cases, and the influence of businesspeople in procurement in state-owned enterprises.
The other issue was the aborted merger of the DA with Agang two years ago, where it later emerged that businessman Nathan Kirsh had influenced the merger.
Kirsh believed to be one of the funders of the DA, said Rajuili.
Parties have refused to say who is financing their local government election campaigns and business operations. Private funding is not properly regulated in the country.
Rajuili said the ANC was currently caught up in the storm over its R1 billion election campaign funding.
She said no one in the party has backed claims by national executive committee member and head of campaigns, Nomvula Mokonyana, on the R1bn spent on the campaign.
Ogle and Rajuili said voters had a right to know who was financially supporting their party.
Election Bureau