I see that hon Magwanishe is supposed to be presenting that, where is he? Go ahead, sir. Just do it, the dummy was drawn so I suppose they thought it through when they drew the dummy. Do what you have to do; the Chief Whip will act after you. Do the introduction.
No, no no ... [Interjections.]
Hon Deputy Speaker and hon members ... [Interjections.]
Point of order.
What's your point of order?
Deputy Speaker, the motion must be moved by the Chief Whip first. That is a bit weak, this is an important Bill, let's do it correctly. It might come back to haunt us. So, they must move the motion, he reads and we take it from there.
Hon members, no! The business of the House will proceed as agreed to. Hon Magwanishe, you will introduce the Bill, sir, and we will talk after you. Go ahead, hon member.
Hon Chairperson ...
Ee ... Deputy Speaker.
Hon Deputy Speaker ... [Laughter.]
Thank you, sir.
Hon members, the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services having considered the Promotion of Access to Information Amendment Bill
introduces the report. The background to the Bill is as follows:
My Vote Counts NPC brought an application in the Western Cape Division of the High court that challenged the constitutional validity of the Promotion of Access to Information Act of 2000. On June 2018 the Constitutional Court confirmed the Western Cape High Court order.
The Constitutional Court reasoned that this is so because the exercise of the right to vote must be an informed choice and there is a vital connection between the proper exercise of the right to vote and the right of access to information, and without access to information the ability of citizens to make responsible political decisions and participate meaningfully in public life is undermined.
The court also heard that the disclosure of private funding would also help to detect whose favour political players are likely to return once elected into public office. The Constitutional Court gave Parliament 18
months to remedy the deficiency. This deadline ends on 20 December 2019.
With this deadline in mind, the committee agreed to initiate the Bill. The committee complied with the National Assembly Rule 273(1) by tabling a memorandum in the National Assembly requesting permission to initiate a Bill on 24 July 2019. On 25 July 2019 the House gave permission to proceed.
The committee called for and considered written comments and consulted with the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development. The committee held public hearings at Parliament on 17 and 18 September 2019 where the following persons and organisations made oral presentations: amaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism, Allan Gray, South African Human Rights Commission, Right2Know, My Vote Counts, Media Monitoring Africa, Congress of South African Trade Unions, Helen Suzman Foundation, Information Regulator and Mr James Tunbridge.
Broadly, the Bill seeks to address the Constitutional Court judgement by inserting a new section, 52(a), which deals with the recording, preservation and disclosure of records on the private funding of political parties and independent candidates.
Clause 1 of the Bill aims to amend the definition of head and private body and also insert a new definition, namely, political party in section 1 of the Public of Promotion of Access to Information Act. Clause 2 of the Bill creates an obligation on the head of a political party, which is defined to include an independent candidate, to disclose donations that have been made to a political party that exceeds the prescribed threshold in a financial year.
The head of a political party must keep records of any donations that have been made to a political party that exceeds the prescribed threshold in a financial year and the identity of persons or entities that made such donations. The prescribed threshold is the one contemplated in section 9(1)(a) of the Political Funding Act of 2018.
The records must be made available on quarterly basis as prescribed and the records must be kept for a period of five years after the records concerned have been created. Hon Deputy Speaker, we ask the House to support this Bill. [Applause.]
I now recognise the hon Chief Whip. What do you want us to do, madam?
Hon Deputy
Speaker, it is the Deputy Chief Whip.
Deputy Chief Whip.
Thank you,
sir. I move that the report be adopted.
Declarations of vote:
Deputy Speaker and hon members, the purpose of this Bill is to give effect to the order of invalidity made by the Western Cape Division of the High Court and confirmed by the Constitutional Court in the matter My Vote Counts v Minister of Justice in 2018.
The order of court declared the Promotion of Access to Information Act invalid to the extent of its inconsistency with the Constitution by failing to provide for the recording, preservation and reasonable disclosure of information on the private funding of political parties and independent candidates.
The Constitutional Court further ordered Parliament to amend the principle act within 18 months which period ends on 20 December this year. The Bill addresses the court judgement by inserting a new clause, 52(a).
In addition, certain definitions in the principle Act are being amended in order to include political parties and independent candidates in those entities who have a duty under the Promotion of Access to Information Act to make available information to the public.
However, unlike the case of other institutions, political parties and independent candidates will not only have a duty to keep proper record of private funders but also to make it available to the public free of charge at regular intervals. Only time will tell what impact this
legislation will have on the ability of political parties to source private funding, specifically opposition parties in a young democracy like ours.
However, an even bigger concern is the fact that the statutory body tasked with the monitoring and enforcement of obligations in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act is the Information Regulator which still as we speak more than five years after it was created by law, and more than three years after the appointment of the first commissioners, it is still only a paper tiger.
The bureaucratic and technical delay of the operationalisation of the Information Regulator bodes ill for the compliance with the legislation now under discussion.
According to the Human Rights Commission task to deal with the monitoring of Promotion of Access to Information Act compliance up to now has reported year in and year out that there is a general and systematic failure to comply with the existing reporting obligations.
Sadly, there is therefore a big likelihood that enforcement of the duty to make public may fall by the wayside. A lot more attention will have to be given to the functionality of the office of the Information Regulator if this piece of legislation is to ever mean anything at all.
Nevertheless, the Bill both gives effective judgement and is also constitutional and the DA supports the Bill. Thank you. [Applause.]
Deputy Speaker, we are also in support of the Bill and the persuasion to force all of us as political parties in a democracy to report and put in a proper record of our private funders. But there are two important things here that must be immediately put to the fore. The first one has to do with the fact that, in South Africa, majority of the time, to constitute a formidable campaign takes a lot of money.
This comes to close to saying that, there is a lot of co- modification of the very processes of the very processes of democratic elections which are seen in developed
countries. As a result, in most of the cases, the people with the most money happen to benefit because they can be able to push their favourite political parties. This is important because, in as much as money is important to constitute a political project, one's vote has to be informed not only by who puts money, but by the greater interests of the country.
The second challenge is that, smaller political parties' new entrance into the democratic space is often marginalised by the fact of funding. If in an economy like South Africa, where majority of the money is with the white minority, it means that smaller political parties that often want to look out for the best interest of smaller rural communities on one hand, or black people in general, don't get majority of the funding from wider white businesses.
So, what does this mean? It means if those black people who are funding black political parties get punished by the ruling party, the existing power dimensions in society will be reproduced, and also, existing political formation in society will be reproduced without a proper
challenge. So, this is something we all must be concerned of. Therefore, the Bill is not necessarily going to disrupt these realities.
We still need new mechanisms of disarticulating the rights to vote, the elections and the entire democratic process from the weight and the power of the rich, to not only buy political actors, but also to persuade legislative directions in most of the cases, like in the case of Spectrum Development or the allocation of spectra. So, in as much we welcome these developments, as the EFF, we will be the first ones to say who the private funders are.
We are still going through a challenge even under those conditions. We are still going to have a challenge of the fact that people who actually fund small political parties; they get punished by the state. The final point is a recommendation. We want to tell Business SA in general that, perhaps it's time that you don't choose one horse in a political race. It's time that they fund in the interest of supporting a democracy. [Applause.]
If they have R100 to give to political parties, they should distribute it like the Independent Electoral Commission, IEC, does, favouring everyone in the political spectra. Why? I am saying this because we see that people who put money, for example, in the CR17 campaign, are the first one to be considered when it comes to tenders and big state contracts. [Applause.]
To end that, they must not fund one person. Instead, they should put their money in the democracy fund established by the IEC, which will then be distributed to all the political parties. In that way, our democracy may function better, without the power and the greed of the capitalists who at the moment in society remain white and are just reproducing the status quo in as far as economic balance of forces are concerned.
The EFF supports the Bill. Thank you very much. [Applause.]
Hon Deputy Speaker, this Amendment Bill
... [interjections.]
Order, hon members. There's a member on the podium who wants to be listened to, please.
This Amendment Bill comes as a result of the Constitutional Court, confirming Western Cape High Court order that Promotion of Access to Information Act, as it stands, is unconstitutional in that. It did not provide for the disclosure by political parties of the funds they receive.
This Amendment Bill, in accordance with the ruling of the Constitutional Court, seeks to amend Promotion of Access to Information Act to regulate to the recordal, preservation and availability of information in respect of private funding to political parties and independent candidates, receives the full support of the IFP.
While the Bill is adequate in respect of accounting records that must be kept in respect of contributions made to party, as well as disbursements made by the party, it does not deal with funding received by individual party members when they are contesting leadership positions within a particular party. This Bill
may have been a missed opportunity in respect of the above.
But we do agree that the threshold of R100 000, in respect of which accounting officers are required to now comply with, in respect of making financial information available to the public, is reasonable as was determined by the court. We compliment the committee for their speed and efficiency in complying with the Amendment Bill within the Constitutional Court order timeframes. I thank you.
Deputy Speaker, Deputy Speaker, the ACDP rises in support of the Promotion of Access to Information Amendment Bill and we wish to commend the perseverance of the My Vote Counts, all the way to the Constitutional Court, to obtain access for ordinary citizens to information on political party funding.
The Political Party Funding Act regulates how to fund political parties. This Promotion of Access to Information Amendment must be read with that Act, but deals with access and information in the hands of
political parties. The importance of this was emphasised by the Constitutional Court, which stated unambiguously that, I quote:
Information on private funding of political parties is essential for the effective exercise of the right to make political choices and to participate in the elections.
Submissions on the Bill contained concerns about the threshold of R100,000 which required disclosure of the donor and the amount involved. The concerns were that the Funding Act left the threshold to regulation, and additionally, it felt the threshold was too high. It also argued that the threshold should be set by regulation in the Promotion of Access to Information Amendment Act itself. The committee, however, decided to leave it as it was.
There was also an argument that the period preservation for records should be seven years and not the five years in the Amendment Bill, to be consistent with the provisions of the Companies Act. Again, the committee
kept the provisions at five years. Notwithstanding the enactment of this Promotion of Access to Information Amendment Bill, South Africans still struggle to exercise their rights to access information in the private and public domains.
We in the ACDP, look forward to the greater empowerment and capacitation, capacity being given to the information regulator. The recent focus on political party funding provides ordinary citizens a valuable opportunity to consider the broader implications and principles of transparency and accountability.
It is crucial to know who funds political parties and what influence they bring to bear on such parties, particularly those in government where lucrative state contracts are at stake. As has been said, procurement is the name; corruption is the game. The ACDP supports this Bill. I thank you.
Deputy Speaker, Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng with Justice Freeman concurring, ordered this Parliament to promotion amend the Promotion of Access to
Information Act and take any other measure it deems appropriate to provide for the recordal, preservation and facilitation of reasonable access to information on the private funding of political parties and independent candidates within a period of 18 months.
In My Vote Counts, NPC versus the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services and others, the Committee on Justice and Correctional Services has sought to assist Parliament to comply with this order. Hon members, the Bill amending the Promotion of Access to Information Act will, as proposed by the committee regulate the recordal preservation and availability of information in respect of private funding to political parties and independent candidates.
This is a separate process to the one that was undertaken during and in the course of the passing of the Political Party Funding Act. The Constitutional Court ruling related to the inadequacy of the current Act to provide for the recordal, preservation and availability of information in respect of private funding to political parties and independent candidates.
Deputy Speaker, the Political Party Funding Act regulates both private and public funding and introduces a Multi- Party Democracy Fund to which anonymous donors may make donations to. The process that we are currently dealing with is empowering ordinary voters to access information in respect of private funding to political parties. The AIC supports this Bill. Thank you.
Declarations of vote (contd):
Deputy Speaker, the ANC rise in support of the Promotion of Access to Information Amendment Bill. The Principle Act which is the Promotion of Access to Information Act, 2000, and this Amendment Bill, are both the reflection of the ANC's commitment to democracy, transparency and accountability.
The ANC has always understood that the core of democracy lies in the recognition of the rights of all citizens to take part in the society's decision making. This requires that individuals are armed with the necessary information so as to make informed decisions. Coming from an undemocratic and secretive apartheid era, where access to information was restricted from the majority of South
Africans, the right to vote and to access information as contained in section 19 (32) of our Constitution respectively, are some of the achievement of democracy that we enjoy today.
In other words, the Bill under consideration today, speaks not only for the fundamental rights of access to information, but also seeks to strengthen that which lies at the very heart of democracy, that being the right to vote. As we heard earlier, the Bill is before this House today, as a result of My Vote Constitutional Court judgement. We know that last year, the Constitutional Court asserted itself and asked this House to correct what it found to be unconstitutional.
Parliament is now ceased with the duty to remedy the defects and the defects are corrected in this Amendment Bill. The Bill seeks to implement the Constitutional Court's judgement as well as amending the Promotion of Access to Information Act, so as to regulate the recording preservation in availability of information in respect to the private funding to political parties in independent candidates.
In the judgement, the court went to great lengths in raising the dangers of secret private funding which could creep into our political and governance space to our detriment. It is also important to note that we consider this Bill today in the context of the Political Party Funding Act, passed by the fifth Parliament last year.
The ANC also wishes to express its appreciation to the public hearings that was held on the Bill, and that interested persons and bodies were all given an opportunity to be heard. This Bill now also includes, not only the declarations of monitory donations, but also sponsorships, loans made by political parties, provision of assets, etc.
So according to the Bill, the voters will now be able to access these records prior to an election. The ANC deems this Bill as necessary for many reasons. One is that it encapsulates the right to vote; it also encapsulates the right to make informed decisions when voting and as a result any measure that supports and reinforces the fundamental rights of our people is welcomed by the ANC.
The Bill will deepen democracy we believe in; usher in a new culture of transparent funding for political parties. Deputy Speaker, I allow me to end with a quote from the former President of the ANC, Comrade Oliver Tambo:
"The true facts are not always obvious. They often have to be looked for"
Indeed, an informed citizenry must ensure that they look for the true fact before they make their crosses on the ballot paper. The ANC supports the Promotion of Access to Information Amendment Bill. I thank you. [Applause.]
Question put.
Agreed to.