Idasa political analyst Richard Calland has told a public radio debate on political party funding that part of the revelations concerning South Africa’s arms deal indicated that interested parties made donations to the ruling African National Congress (ANC).
Speaking on the After Eight Debate on John Perlman’s SABC radio talk show on Wednesday, Calland said there were a number of cases around the world indicating that the needs of the poor were being eclipsed “by those with wealth” even as far as social democratic parties which were in government were concerned.
As the anchor of the debate — which also involved six opposition parties — on whether party political funding should be transparent, he said when the British Labour Party came to power, one which historically represented the poor, political funding which had gone to the Conservative Party had switched overnight to Prime Minister Tony Blair’s party.
In Latin America, the new left-leaning Brazilian government had “faced problems” of being offered donations from players in the petroleum industry.
In South Africa the ANC “whatever it may say … is a wealthy party … it spends a lot on elections and gets a lot of private money”.
Calland, whose institute carries out political and economic research, said: “Part of the revelations of the arms deal exposed the fact that British Aerospace and others did make donations, I believe, to the ANC.”
He reported that World Bank official Mamphele Ramphele — the former University of Cape Town vice-chancellor who is in South Africa at the moment for a conference — had noted this week that there was “no evidence” of her bank influencing South Africa’s macro-economic policy.
However, it could be argued that “… transnational capital is playing a big role in switching the African National Congress away from distribution (through the) RDP … towards fiscal discipline of Gear (Growth Employment and Redistribution).”
While accepting that political parties needed money to run their organisations “we say, however, wealth and money should not be able to unduly influence the policy process as it has here, we believe.”
He said one of the spinoffs of political parties being less reliant on donations would be that parties would be forced “to go out and talk to the voters … I think that would be a good thing.”
Calland said when reform was on its way “as it has to partly because of the African Union conventions on anti-corruption there is a very distinct provision on parties and governments to make this disclosure” on the African continent.
Idasa is motivating that parties open their books on donations particularly if they are bigger than a threshold of R20 000 a year or cumulatively more than that amount in a year from a single donor. He suggested that smaller donations by individuals and small business would therefore be protected from any danger of losing contracts if they back opposition parties.
Asked what the ANC position on public funding was (the ANC’s secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe was reported by Perlman as being unwilling to participate in the debate) Calland said their position was that they were a private entity and not a public entity.
All 13 political parties in parliament had declined “for one reason or another” to provide details of funding. The six political parties which participated in the radio debate all said they would open their books if the playing fields were level for all parties.
Democratic Alliance chief whip Douglas Gibson said he had some time ago introduced a private member’s Bill providing for the regulation of party funding which had been referred to other political parties for comment. He said in a democracy people should not be able to buy favours from the government through donations to the governing party. It should also be clear that businesses shouldn’t believe that giving money to an opposition party would lead to government denying it contracts.
He suggested any foreign funding of South African political parties should be “absolutely barred”, noting that the ANC had allegedly received money from Libya and Saudi Arabia.
But he said parties did need money to run their operations and their election campaigns.
The Inkatha Freedom Party’s Peter Smith, the New National Party’s Daryl Swanepoel and the African Christian Democratic Party’s Kent Durr all agreed to the principle of openness as long as it applied to all parties. Professor Themba Sono, deputy leader of the Independent Democrats, said his party was not prepared to disclose its funding “until the law applies to everyone equally”.
But he said that political parties were a “public face …we ought to know who is funding whom”. Durr suggested that public funding — by the taxpayer — may raise the accountability factor applying to political parties.
Gibson said his party had spent about R20-million on the last national election while Swanepoel said the NNP had spent about R10 to R12-million. Durr said his party had spent “less than a million rand” while the ANC was reported by Gibson as having spent “over R100-million”. – I-Net Bridge