Advocacy group, My Vote Counts, is challenging the Political Funding Act in the Western Cape High Court today.
The organisation claims the Act falls short of its constitutional goals of transparency, openness and accountability.
My Vote Counts is objecting to provisions that allow donations below R100 000 to remain undisclosed.
Senior Researcher Joel Bregman says the transparency of such information will help people to vote from an informed position.
“We are saying that the limits, the R100 000 and then R15 million, we are saying that they are unjustifiably high and that we need to have them lowered. We are asking for seven things specifically, we are saying that all donations should be disclosed regardless of the amount, and we are asking the court to direct Parliament to rework this number. We also then speak about cumulative donations that we just spoke about, needed to be regulated and limited. We also then speak about expenditure as an important part of this. So, for public funding, parties have to report on how they spend their funds.”
Concerns raised by My Vote Counts regarding the Political Funding Act:
Democracy thrives on informed citizens!
We are in court this week. Check out what we seek! #BeInformed #MyVoteCounts #PoliticalFunding pic.twitter.com/U8inZMCE3k— My Vote Counts 🇵🇸 (@MVC_SA) February 17, 2025
Meanwhile, African National Congress (ANC) Chief Whip Mdumiseni Ntuli has opposed My Vote Count’s challenge of the Act.
Ntuli says the purpose of the Act has been met.
“While we support the Act in its current form, we believe that there is a need to have a proper regulation in relation to the limits and the threshold that needed to be set up by the President. And that is the aspect that we raise our concern as the African National Congress, not necessarily to amend the Act. And we don’t support the amendment of the Act, but instead, we support the process through which has been led by the portfolio committee through which there must be certain changes to ensure that the Act deals with the question of the upper limit in terms of the money made available to political parties.”
VIDEO| My Vote Counts has been challenging the Political Funding Act for some time:
