POLITICAL parties represented in Parliament and the nine provincial legislatures will have to operate with less money this year after the Electoral Commission of SA (IEC) allocated them nearly R163 million.
This year’s allocation from the represented political party fund is R2m less than the R165m parties received in 2020/21, which ended on March 31.
According to the IEC, another fee to defray the costs of administering and managing the new multi-party democracy fund for the 2021/22 financial year will be 5% of the R163m.
In 2019/20, political parties received over R158.3m while in 2018/19 they received about R150m from the IEC.
Earlier this month, the IEC also revealed that there was no money available in the multi-party democracy fund for the 14 political parties represented in the national and provincial legislatures.
The multi-party democracy fund was established in terms of the Political Party Funding Act of 2018 to raise and distribute funds donated from the private sector to represented political parties.
The IEC is responsible for administering the multi-party democracy fund from corporate and private donors and distribute to political parties represented in Parliament and provincial legislatures.
Both the represented political party and the multi-party democracy funds will now distribute money in a more equitable formula, with one third allocated equitably to all parties holding seats in the National Assembly or any provincial legislature and the other two thirds in proportion to the seats held by a party in the national and provincial legislatures.
State organs and entities, foreign governments and agencies or any donor who requests to remain anonymous are not allowed to donate to the multi-party democracy fund, according to the IEC.
Allocations from the multi-party democracy fund cannot be used to pay MPs and MPLs, state employees, support any cause contravening the code of ethics, establish any business or buy or maintain immovable property unless it will be used by the particular party for political purposes.
The fund can also not be used to fund legal expenses relating to internal party disputes.
From this month, political parties will be required to disclose the identities of their donors from amounts more than R100 000 and donations will be capped at R15m per donor.
The IEC has established the political party funding system to allow political parties and donors to capture and declare their donations.
POLITICAL BUREAU