By With elections around the corner, political parties are now in full swing campaigning to woo voters to vote for them, furthermore, the parties have increased their efforts in raising funds for their election campaigning.
The Electoral Commission (IEC) has disclosed the party funding report of the quarter financial year stating October and ending December 2023; according to the report, a total of seven parties received donations that added up to a total of R59 052 065.82. The new kid on the block Rise Mzansi has received the highest donation totalling R16 744 186.
According to the IEC, Rebecca Oppenheimer donated R15 million to Rise Mzansi, R1 million was received from an entity named Main Street 1564 (Pty) Ltd. The remainder of the donations declared by the party was two in-kind donations valued at R184 228.00 and R559 958.00, received from InJozi Design CC and Kairos Communication (Pty) Ltd, respectively. In-kind donation by InJozi Design CC was in the form of website development for the party while the Kairos Communication (Pty) Ltd’s in-kind donation was in the form of “printing and flighting of the party’s posters nationwide”.
According to the Commission, Oppenheimer is known to have also made similar donations to other political parties in the past including ActionSA and the DA.
The report revealed party funding as follows:
ActionSA: R13 912 450.00 ActionSA, which declared the second largest donation for the quarter, received their highest monetary donations from the party’s regular donors, Victoria Freudenheim (R7 486 200.00) and Martin Moshal (R5 000 000, made of two separate donations of R3 000 000.00 and R2 000 000.00 during the months of October and November 2023). The balance of the donations was received from entities and individuals named African Equity Corporation (Pty) Ltd with a donation of R1 000 000.00, SHIYAN 80422 (Pty) Ltd with a donation of R150 000.00, Solomon David Group (Pty) Ltd with a donation of R127 750.00 and Alan Beesley with a donation of R148 000.00. All of ActionSA’s declared donations were monetary donations.
African National Congress (ANC): R10 000 000.00 African National Congress (ANC) made the third highest donation declaration valued at a combined R10 000 000.00. All of the ANC’s declared donations were of monetary nature and were received from Chancellor House Trust. The donations were of R5 000 000.00 each, both received during the month of December 2023
Build One South Africa (BOSA): R8 500 000.00 Build One South Africa (BOSA) declared the fourth highest donation received valued at R8 500 000.00, which was all monetary in nature. The party’s highest donation was received from Jessica Bridget Slack Jell, valued at R6 000 000.00, followed by Martin Moshal with a donation of R2 000 000.00, and lastly, an entity named RTH Investments (Pty) Ltd with a donation of R500 000.00. All these donors are regular donors to various political parties in South Africa, inclusive of the DA and ActionSA.
The IEC says, over and above these donations, BOSA previously received and declared a donation of R5 000 000.00 made by Mary Slack, the mother of Jessica Bridget Slack Jell, during the second quarter of the 2023/23 financial year. This was a manual donation declaration submitted through an email as opposed to the Online Party Funding System (OPFS) that is purposefully created for declaration of donations
Patriotic Alliance (PA): R7 096 380.00 PA declared monetary donations amounting to R7 096 380.00 from eight different donors. Party leader, Gayton McKenzie, was the party’s highest donor for the quarter with three separate donations of R250 000.00, R2 289 130.00 and R220 000.00 during the months of October, November and December 2023, respectively. These added up to a combined total of R2 759 130.00.
Another party leader, Kenny Kunene, made a total monetary donation of R1 007 250.00 to his party during the same period. Other donors were RED C2 (Pty) Ltd with a donation of R2 000 000.00 and Downtown Spares CC with a combined donation of R380 000.00 (made of two separate donations R190 000.00 each during the months of October and November 2023).
XMOOR Transport (Pty) Ltd was another donor, also with a donation of R190 000.00. Metrowired (Pty) Ltd made a donation of R380 000.00, XTX Trade (Pty) Ltd also donated R190 000.00 and, lastly, an individual named Rapula Mogaki made a donation of R190 000.00
The accompanying documents to the donation submitted to the Commission demonstrated that the multiple donations amounting to R190 000 were towards the political party’s gala dinner which was held sometime in November of 2023. Ordinarily, these amounts should not have been declared as donations but rather kept on record for disclosure as “other income” in the audited annual financial statements in terms of section 12(3)(d) of the Act. However, the Commission is publishing these as voluntarily declared by the political party.
Democratic Alliance (DA): R2 608 009.05 DA’s total donation declaration amount was R2 608 009.05 received in a combination of in-kind and monetary donations from six different donors. The largest donation amount of R1 000 000.00 was received from an entity named Artemis Properties (Pty) Ltd, followed by Beacon Rock Limited with a donation of R999 711.81. Several other donations were received from Joof Alberts Trust valued at R250 000.00, Indawo (Cape) (Pty) Ltd valued at R150 000.00, Mr A Dymond donated R136 500.00 and the regular donor, Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF) with a combined in-kind and monetary donation of R71 797.24. FNF’s hybrid donation was towards the cost of Communication Training for DA members.
Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP): R191 040.77 The IFP reported a lone in-kind donation valued at R191 040.77 from Konrad Adenauer Stiftung NPC. The donation was made towards costs related to a training workshop for party members employed in the national, provincial and local spheres of government.
“Foreign donations for the third quarter were R71 797.24 and R191 040.77 declared by DA and IFP, respectively. For each of these parties, the donations were compliant with the legislation in that they did not exceed the set limit of R5 million per party per financial year and were utilised for purposes sanctioned by the law,” said the Spokesperson for the IEC Kate Bapela.
“Multi-Party Democracy Fund During the third quarter, the Multi-Party Democracy Fund received a contribution of R5 000 000.00 (made of two separate amounts of R2 500 000.00) from Standard Bank. The bank is a repeat contributor to the MPDF as it previously did so in the run up to the 2021 Local Government Elections. This contribution has already been distributed to parties,” explained Bapela.
