MVC NOTES THE SIGNING OF PROMOTION OF ACCESS TO INFORMATION AMENDMENT ACT
My Vote Counts notes the President signing the Promotion of Access to Information (PAIA) Amendment Act into law.
The amendment to PAIA is a result of a 2018 Constitutional Court (the Court) ruling ruled in My Vote Counts’ favour that deemed PAIA unconstitutional as it did not make provision for the recordal, preservation and disclosure of private funding of political parties and independent candidates.
In the Court’s judgment, it found that, ‘information on the private funding of political parties and independent candidates is essential for the effective exercise of the right to make political choices and to participate in the elections.’ It also stressed that this legislation would deter corruption. The Court ordered Parliament to amend PAIA within 18 months from the ruling and develop further legislation if required.
There is no commencement date yet for the PAIA Amendment Act, but when in effect, it will compel political parties and independent candidates to create and maintain records of all private donations received over R100,000 for a period of 5 years and release this information publicly on a quarterly basis.
This is undoubtedly an important step towards greater transparency in the funding of our politics and will also be an important mechanism to deter corruption. However, the manner in which the PAIA Amendment Act was drafted, limits recordal and accessibility to the confines of a connected, but separate piece of legislation, the Political Party Funding Act (PPFA).