Rise Mzanzi must come clean on its murky funding

1 June 2024

Rise Mzanzi received R15 million from an organisation known as “We are the People”. Their website indicates that their mission is to “promote knowledge and understanding of the Constitution, its making, and its impact on society”. They also request donations from the public on their website.

If the “We the People” vision is “For the people of South Africa to know, own and protect the Constitution to realise its promise”, then it must know that there is a law known as the Political Party Funding Act, enacted to set an annual limit and disclosure thresholds for individual donations to political parties.

Although the Act has now been amended, with limits and thresholds in limbo awaiting the President’s proposal for new limits and thresholds, this “donation” to Rise Mzanzi occurred within the rules of the original Act and is a clear violation of it as it hides the source, much like the ANC’s murky donations from Chancellor House.

“We the people” in funneling money donated to it to a political party, has also hidden the source of the funds behind the donation. This R15 million could be many individual donations, or a single donation. In either event, the question must be asked whether the donor/s were aware that their money would fund a political party and not be used for the stated purpose?

“We the people” must come clean on whose donations were funneled to Rise Mzanzi. It must ensure that the donors have agreed for their money to be used for this purpose and it must disclose the source of every donation over R100 000 as required by the Act.

The DA will hold Rise Mzanzi and “We are the People” to account and will lodge a complaint with the IEC and the Directorate for Nonprofit Organisations.

Issued by Dion George, DA Shadow Minister of Finance, 1 June 2024