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.