Cape Town - The more than two-decade-old policy on non-disclosure of political party funding could end on Friday - if an application by an NGO for parties to disclose their private funders succeeds.
My Vote Counts is keeping its fingers crossed that all 13 parties represented in Parliament will disclose their private donors in the spirit of the local government elections in August.
The deadline for parties to do so is on Friday following the NGO's Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) application.
The organisation said on Thursday that it hoped the parties would account to their voters by revealing who was financially backing them.
Co-ordinator Janine Ogle said that so far the DA, Freedom Front Plus and IFP had responded to the request.
However, they did not disclose their financial backers in the responses.
The other parties have until Friday to respond to the PAIA application, which was lodged a month ago.
My Vote Counts said it was in the voters' interest to know who was financially supporting the parties they voted for.
It said voters had a right to know who were the parties' donors.
The issue of party funding has been discussed for several years, with the now defunct Institute for Democracy in South Africa launching two unsuccessful court applications on the matter.
In 2005 and last year, the organisation lost the cases on party funding in the courts.
Over the past 22 years of democracy in South Africa, party funding has remained a secret.
Other than the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) and Parliament disbursing funds to parties represented in the national legislature, parties rely on private donors, companies and individuals to survive.
Funding by the IEC and Parliament is based on the number of seats parties have in the national legislature.
Opposition parties have complained that the disclosure of their private funders could compromise them.
They warned that their private funders could be subjected to threats and intimidation by the state and would be forced to run away and close shop.
In the financial statements in Parliament, the IEC has shown that in the 2015 financial year, it disbursed R121 million to parties in the national legislature, with the ANC, as the majority party, getting the lion’s share of R72m.
It was followed by the DA, which received R26m, the EFF R9.8m and the IFP R3.1m.
The other smaller parties received R1.9m and less.
The R121m distributed by the IEC to parties last year was an improvement from R114m it disbursed in the previous financial year.
Political Bureau