National Assembly Greenlights Political Party Funding Bill

The National Assembly has unanimously approved the Promotion of Access to Information Amendment Bill (PAIA), which compel political parties and independent candidates to make information available about donations of more than R100,000.

The amendment follows court action pursued by lobby group My Vote Counts that ended with the Constitutional Court finding the act didn’t cover the disclosure of private political funding.

The ConCourt gave Parliament until December to fix it.

The bill must now go before the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) before it can be signed into law by the president

The ACDP’s Steve Swart commended lobby group My Vote Counts for taking its fight for transparency in political funding all the way to the Constitutional Court.

Democratic Alliance MP Glynnis Breytenbach pointed out that the Information Regulator, tasked with enforcing PAIA, was still a “paper tiger” five