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). 

In MVC’s submission on the then Amendment Bill in 2019, we argued that the Committee should reconsider whether the proposed changes to PAIA were indeed sufficient to remedy its constitutional defects to comply with the Court judgment to ensure transparency and accountability and the right to vote from an informed position. 

We motivated for the R100,000 threshold to be lowered because it is still a very substantial amount, out of reach of the vast majority of people, and smaller sums can still buy influence. We also noted that multiple donations of each less than R100,000, but cumulatively in excess of R100,000 could be made by the same person or company in a financial year, but these donations would not have to be disclosed, which allows secrecy to be maintained and undermines the purpose of the legislation. 

We also raised the issue of the definition of what constitutes a donation, arguing that certain types of donations can still be concealed unless the then Amendment Bill expanded on the definition contained in the PPFA. A number of other civil society organisations raised similar concerns.

A further issue is that the PAIA Amendment Act was  drafted in a way that it dovetails with the PPFA, relying on the PPFA’s definitions and Regulations such as the threshold amount for disclosure. Neither have a commencement date, and until the PPFA is operational, the amendments to PAIA will have no real bearing to force disclosures to be made.

It is unfortunate to note that one and a half years after signing the Political Party Funding Act, the President still has not signed the commencement date for this Act to become effective. Until both the PPFA and the PAIA Amendment Act are operational, we will still do not have access to this crucial information. Now, with the Local Government Elections only a year or so away, we urge the President to sign the commencement dates for both laws in order for the South African electorate to finally know who funds our political parties and independent candidates, and to have this information before going to the ballot box. 

Statement issued by Sheilan Clarke, MVC Communications Officer, 5 June 2020