Hon House Chair, hon Speaker, hon members, the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services requests the permission of the House in terms of Rule 273(1) for the introduction of the following legislation in the House, mainly the Promotion of Access to Information Amendment Bill of 2019.
The Bill aims to amend the promotion of Access to Information Act No 2 of 2000. This is meant to revise and align its provisions with section 32 of the Constitution. The Bill seeks to regulate the recordal, preservation and availability of information in respect of private funding to political parties and independent candidates.
On 21 June 2018, the Constitutional Court in My Vote Counts NPC versus the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services and another, confirmed an order of constitutional invalidity made by the High Court of South Africa, Western Cape Division, which declared that Promotion of Access to Information Act is
invalid to the extent of its inconsistency with the Constitution by failing to provide for the recordal, preservation and reasonable disclosure of information on the private funding of political parties and independent candidates.
The Constitutional Court further ordered Parliament to amend 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.
The Bill will address the Constitutional Court's judgment by inserting a new Chapter 2(a). This chapter will deal with publication and availability of publication and availability of certain records of political parties in order to regulate the recordal, preservation and availability facilitation of information. In respect of private funding of political parties and independent candidates and to provide for matters connected therewith, the Bill creates an obligation for the accounting officer of a political party which is defined to include an independent candidate to create and keep records of
any monies paid or donated by persons or entities to a political party which is more than R100 000.
Any money lent to the political party, any money paid on behalf of the political party, asserts, services or facilities provided to a political party and any sponsorship provided to a political party. The records must be available on social media platforms on quarterly basis. Furthermore, the Bill requires that the records be updated and be made available on social media platforms of the political party concerned two months before the election of the National Assembly, the provincial legislatures and municipal elections or a referendum.
The records must be kept for a period of at least five years after the records were created. The Constitutional Court considered the right to make political choices and the right to vote. Upon deciding whether there was a link between these rights and the disclosure of private funding information, the court found that the constitution envisages an informed right to vote.
This is because in a democracy, government is based on the will of the people which is expressed through elections. The court finds that if voters did not have access to all the necessary information to make an informed decision when voting, this can frustrate the will of the people. We request therefore, that the House approves this request. Thank you very much.
There was no debate.
House Chair, I move that the House in terms of Rule 273(3), give permission that the legislative proposal be proceeded with. Thank you.
The motion is that permission accordingly given to the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services to proceed with the legislative proposal. Are there any objections?
HON MEMBERS: No.
No objections. Agreed to. That concludes the business ... [Interjections.]
Chair.
Yes.
I would like to make a declaration.
There's request for a declaration.
Declaration(s) of vote
Chairperson, as the EFF, we really welcome the initiatives as directed by our courts. It is important that in the spirit of this particular amendment and legislative process to reiterate our call that President Ramaphosa must take the country into confidence about people and companies that funded his presidential campaign to become the President of the ANC. In the interest of access to information, we have the right as the South Africans to know, who funded the CR17 Campaign and what do they stand to benefit?
Order, hon members, order.
This is important and critical particularly for the President whose attitude and promises were based on the fact that he will be a transparent President. It is a fact that he doesn't deny that he received funding for his presidential campaign. He did not declare it in Parliament. That is illegal. So, unequivocally, we make the call and we reiterate, President Ramaphosa, reveal who funded you? Reveal their names; reveal also what do they stand to benefit? We are giving him an opportunity, because if he doesn't do so, we will have to do it on his behalf, or we will have to go and approach our courts to force him to reveal the people that funded him and also what do they stand to benefit. That is in the interest of access to information. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Order; order hon members.
Hon Chair, I am glad that the hon member of the EFF accepts the principle that all parties who receive funding for their campaign need to disclose, and to this end, we support the original action taken by My Vote Counts. They have been at this for a number of years now, and I'm glad that the Apex Court has ruled that we have to bring about the
amendments to our legislation so that we can reveal all donations over R100 000.
But in considering these amendments, hon Chairperson of the Committee, we would like you to note what the Chief Justice said. He said, I quote, "the ongoing law-making process may comfortably run parallel to this judgment without the one being undermined by the other in any way." Therefore, when considering this amendment, this committee must take note of the Political Party Funding Bill which has been passed into law.
We have set up an ad hoc committee in the Fifth Parliament and the only thing outstanding now is that we understand that there are about 5000 submissions to the regulations that will accompany this Act. We are hoping that on 1 and 2 August these regulations will be made known because that is the day the Independent Electoral Commission, IEC, have set.
The sooner we need to disclose the campaign funding of all parties of all sides of the House, the better. I don't think we should single any particular party or any individual in this case. Thank you.
House Chairperson, we are not going to speak on this because it really is a technical amendment and we don't have much choice because the courts have directed to do that. But I certainly it is time that we do start to look at the connection between money and politics because there is annexes there that can be problematic.
We wouldn't have issues like Bosasa had this been active five years ago. We couldn't have seen foreign governments like Mr Arafats government handing over briefcases to Mr Dyantyi's party and I see that he is very finicky about that. But let me just say this, that the good thing about passing the legislation it then applies to all parties equally, and I think we need to start asking ourselves questions:
Who's funding these parties at fancy houses in Camps Bay? Who's paying for the business class tickets that are found in the rubbish bins of those parties? Who's paying for the Mot & Chandon and the Meerlust Rubicon that was found there? Why are politicians meeting with Mr Anton Rupert quietly behind the scenes and keeping this away from their own parties, and more importantly, what interest would a business person have in
paying for somebody's outstanding tax bill at SA Revenue Service, Sars?
These are the accesses that we got to look at very carefully in politics because it's not regular it's properly that politics can really become a terrible place where money displaces the interests of the people of South Africa. Therefore, we've got to look at who the hidden hand is behind many of these particular parties. When you look at the recent attack on people like the hon Pravin Gordhan and others, I think you can follow the moneybag very carefully and it ends up at Mr Mazzoti's door and Colonette.
You could see Mr Andile Mgxitama that he is opposition to various things; you can trace the money back to the Gupta family. These are the accesses that we got to watch for in politics, to ensure that money doesn't taint politics in South Africa. So, we will be participating in this, and making sure that it is a responsible amendment because what you also don't want to do is to stranglehold the situation where only the governing party, to dispensing of tenders and access is able to channel money into their coffers.
So, we looking forward into this new era of transparency and hopefully, it will prevent things like Bosasa and things that we have seen unfolding in our body politics over the cause of the last fortnight. Thank you. [Applause.]
Chairperson, the FF Plus started about two years ago with the process where we said that we have to amend where the party political fund are from, which we did. And my question is: Why don't we start to implement correctly these specific amendments to the Party Political Fund?
The Political Party Funding Act provides firstly that, all people who want to donate money can donate it in a specific account with the Electoral Commission and that there are certain restrictions of say R100 000 which, if you go above that, you have to declare it. We have a period here in South Africa where a taxpayers' money has been looted because of certain political people and officials in the governing party, not because of someone else from the public, but because it's a political party who is in government that actually allows these things to happen.
Therefore, the FF Plus says, let's start with what we already have and ensure that be enforced. You know, the problem with South Africa partly is also that we are some good legislation, but we do not enforce it. That is part of the problem.
Afrikaans:
Dan vra ek myself die vraag: Hoekom sal 'n bepaalde skenker miljoene rande gee vir 'n bepaalde politieke party, wat die regering van die dag is, as hy nie iets terug wil h nie? 'n Besigheidspersoon doen dit vir besigheid, nie omdat hy 'n bepaalde ideaal nastreef nie.
Ek ken baie sakemense, wat vir my reguit s: "Ek stem nie vir die ANC nie, maar ek gee vir hulle geld; hulle dink ek stem vir hulle." Dit is eintlik niks anders as 'n bedrag wat gegee word om te s dat hulle 'n dividend op dit kry nie
Laastens, wat die agb President en die verslag teen hom betref, die versoek van die Vryheidsfront Plus aan die President is, neem die publiek van Suid- Afrika in jou vertroue. Ongeag van die verslag, gaan voort. Ek is op rekord toe ek ges het: Doen die hersiening, maar neem die mense van
Suid-Afrika in jou vertoue en s watter geld daar vir jou gegee is.
English:
Hon Chair, to receive millions of rands only for a campaign to ensure that you are elected, creates more questions because, why would you give millions to a President to become a President? I thank you. [Time expired.]
House Chair, the ACDP supports this motion and again as the other speakers has indicated; it must be read with the Political Party Funding Act that has been signed into law; that is not yet not operational. Why is that? It is because of outstanding regulations. Now, there is a whole question as to why that Act is not applied because we've passed it; it's signed into law but the IEC is not implementing it correctly. That is a separate issue.
I fully agree with the sentiment expressed by other speakers about the need for the disclosure of party funding and that is why we supported the Political Party Funding Act. What we've got here is interesting because it is the access to that information. We as the ACDP, have raised it continually, I
have also raised my concerns in the Justice Committee that the Constitutional Court strikes down pieces of legislation that are passed by this Parliament.
The executive then delays in bringing their amendments, and then we are sitting at the last minute, the National Assembly and the NCOP, to effect those changes. Recently, in the Justice Committee we raised that again and thankfully this now is a Committee Bill that is brought by the committee. Therefore, I want to commend the chairperson for that initiative because we need in future, we need to ensure that it happens.
The Constitutional Court instructs Parliament to amend the legislation when it strikes it down. We cannot wait to the last minute. There's already more than a year passed since this legislation has been passed. So we need to be vigilant and in future pass more of these Committee Bills when the Constitutional Court strikes down our legislation. The ACDP as I have indicated will support this motion. I thank you.
Question put.
Agreed to.
Business Concluded.
The House adjourned at 17:00. -----------------------