Johannesburg - The 15 political parties represented in national and provincial legislatures will share R165 million for the next 12 months, the Electoral Commission announced on Wednesday.
According to a notice published in the Government Gazette in terms of the Public Funding of Represented Political Parties Regulations, the R165m is for the period between April 1 until the end of March next year.
In the 2019/20 financial year, which ended on Tuesday last week, the parties shared just over R158.3m compared to R149m in 2018/19.
There are 14 parties with seats in Parliament while the Minority Front is represented in the KwaZulu-Natal provincial legislature by party leader Shameen Thakur-Rajbansi but has no representative in any other legislature.
In the 2018/19 allocation, the ANC received the lion’s share with over R88.3m and the official opposition DA got just above R32.2m while the EFF were allocated over R12m and almost R4.2m was earmarked for the IFP.
Parties represented in the National Assembly received more than R133.85m in 2018/19 while provincial legislatures were allocated about R14.9m.
Across the board, the biggest political parties report using the funds on salaries, arrangement of meetings and rallies, hiring buses and taxis, audio visual equipment and other equipment, catering, events, promotions and publications.
The commission also regulates the repayment under certain circumstances of unspent balances of the funds by political parties.