The political parties will gain R1,5m a month from a new proposal to pass on state subsidies. Chris Louw reports
A SCHEME to give political parties large state subsidies is being slipped quietly into place in the guise of a “constituent’s allowance”.
The plan, approved by the Speaker of Parliament and put to the Cabinet this week, would see the government giving R1,5-million every month to parties for their office expenses and infrastructure.
The lion’s share of this — R936 000 a month — would go to the ANC.
The subsidy is hidden in the “constituent’s allowance” of R3 000 a month for each MP. This money will be paid directly to their party.
With 252 national assembly (NA) members and 60 senators, the ruling party will get a whopping R11-million a year.
The National Party, with 82 NA members and 17 senators, will receive R297 000 a month; the Inkatha Freedom Party — 43 NA members and five senators — will receive R144 000; the Freedom Front — nine NA members and five senators — R42 000; the Democratic Party — five NA members and three senators — R24 000; and the African Christian Democratic Party — two NA members — R6 000.
The total bill will come to R17 640 000 a year. The money is to be used for the creation of infrastructure and the defraying of costs such as office rental, remuneration of secretarial and other personnel, telephone and fax accounts, provision of office furniture and equipment, stationary and postage.
The proposal, emanating from the NA’s rules committee, states that the reason for the allowances is so that “the best service can be rendered to constituents”.
The speaker, Frene Ginwala, this week accepted recommendations that the “constituent’s allowance” be paid to political parties and the matter was referred to the cabinet for a final decision.
In the previous regime, parliamentarians received allowances to assist them in constituency work. There were able to claim R2 200 a month for expenses already incurred. They had to hand in an audited statement of these costs, and many did not use their full allowance.
However, MPs no longer have constituencies. Instead of this money going to improve contact between MPs and their voters, it will go directly to the party head-office which will have a great deal of latitude in spending it.
This will be of considerable help to the debt-burdened ANC. Although the party will not comment on the size of its post-election debt, it is believed to run into tens of millions of rands, despite the fact that election costs were subsidised by the Transitional Executive Council.
Grants to cover running expenses will free up other ANC funds to service their debt. MPs will be giving the ANC about R1 000 a month from their salaries — bringing in an additional R280 000 every month.
There has been little opposition from other parties to the scheme, presumably because they are all in need of the cash injection.
According to the new proposal, each political party will appoint an accounting officer “who shall annually submit audited statements to the secretary of parliament on how its allowance was expended”.
The document was sent to cabinet on Tuesday, but was too late to be added to the agenda for Wednesday’s meeting. It will probably be discussed next Wednesday.
* The document also proposes that dependent children of MPs be allowed to undertake four single journeys a year in the economy class to any internal destination. A journey undertaken by a child under the age of 12 will be regarded as half a journey. MPs are allowed 48 single journeys a year. It is recommended that they pay 20 percent of the fare for any additional internal journeys.