This is who has been funding political parties
SA’s political parties have been receiving donations in the form of money, goods and services from banks; corporations; individuals; foreign entities, governments and political parties; and state-owned enterprises.
My Vote Counts (MVC), a nonprofit organisation, has released a report that is a compilation of information on private funding of political parties through donations and other financial transfers.
Private funding of political parties is in the spotlight, especially after disclosures at the state capture inquiry about how companies such as Bosasa bribed politically connected individuals and the ANC.
The MVC report details a list of donations given to the ANC, DA, EFF, IFP and UDM.
MVC said the report served as an informative reminder of donations allocated to political parties contesting the May 8 election, in the absence of an effective party funding transparency disclosure regime, which would help voters make an informed decision.
MVC said that its report was compiled using publicly available information but that it could not claim to have all the information on political parties’ private funding.
At the top of the MVC’s list of donations to the ANC are those received from Bosasa, now known as African Global Operations. Bosasa COO Angelo Agrizzi told the state capture inquiry about how the company paid millions of rand in bribes every month to politically connected individuals to secure tenders at state institutions and made considerable donations to the ANC and some of its leaders.
Other donors were billionaire businessperson Robert Gumede, the Guptas and their entities, and VBS Mutual Bank. The Indian National Congress, a major political party in India, the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola were some of the foreign parties said to have funded the party.
Companies such as Sanlam, Anglo American and MTN had also contributed to the party.
The DA’s donors include Nathan Kirsch, the SA-born billionaire who lives in the UK. Kirsch conceded in an interview with Business Times that he funded the DA and Agang with a “marginal amount” of money, according to MVC. The party also once took money from a Gupta-linked associate. In 2009, it met Stephen Nel a director of Gupta-owned Sahara Computers. At that meeting Nel reportedly confirmed he would provide the party with R200,000.
Like the ANC, the DA also received money from MTN, Sanlam and Anglo American. These companies have donated money to various political parties represented in parliament.
The EFF, which contested its first election in 2014, is reported to have received money from Afrirent, a company that bid for a tender from the City of Johannesburg. Also on the list of EFF donors was VBS, alleged tobacco smuggler Adriano Mazzotti and his co-director of Carnilinx, Kyle Phillips.
In January, President Cyril Ramaphosa signed into law the Political Party Funding Bill, but it does not affect the 2019 elections. The law includes a ban on donations from foreign sources and a requirement for parties to disclose all donations above a certain threshold.
Earlier in April, the Electoral Commission of SA announced that it had decided to postpone the commencement of the first part of the Political Party Funding Act to allow time for the finalisation of the regulations and other key preparations.