Cape Town - Electoral funding advocacy group My Vote Counts has launched a legal challenge in the Western Cape High Court seeking to amend the Political Party Funding Act (PPFA).
They want the act to provide for the disclosure of financial information related to all expenditure of private donations.
In papers filed yesterday, the group said it wants the act changed so that it makes available information on all private donations, not only those above R100 000.
My Vote Counts also wants the reduction of the upper annual limit of R15 million limit per donor and limitations on donations from people or entities who are related to donors, so as to prevent circumvention of the upper limit.
The 18 respondents in the matter include President Cyril Ramaphosa, the ministers of Justice and Home Affairs, the Electoral Commission and the 14 parties with seats in Parliament.
My Vote Counts spokesperson, Sheilan Clarke acknowledged that the Act was one of the most important pieces of legislation since 1996 and that it had gone a long way in deepening transparency and strengthening the right to vote.
However, Clarke said two years after the enactment of the PPFA and following various disclosures published by the Independent Electoral Commission, it was evident that the act had failed to meet its constitutional aims and thus needed to be strengthened.
The court papers urge the court to order that the constitutional invalidity in respect of the R100000 disclosure threshold operates immediately from the date of the court's judgment.
They ask that relief in relation to other aspects should be suspended until Parliament acts, within 12 months, to remedy those provisions of the PPFA.
The ANC, though, has been mulling amending the law to allow for increasing the threshold that can be disclosed. It wants the R15m disclosure to be increased to R50m or R100m.
mwangi.githahu@inl.co.za