NGO My Vote Counts (MVC) says it will be writing to President Cyril Ramaphosa to request that he releases the full record of the reasons he considered amendments to the Political Party Funding Act earlier this month when he signed into law.

Ramaphosa assented to doubling the upper limit of donations to political parties from R15 million to R30 million and the threshold for disclosure of donations, from R100 to R 200 000. This follows the regulations being passed by parliament in May this year.

The president has passed the legislation despite a pending judgement in the Western Cape High Court on the matter, launched by MVC, which challenges the constitutionality of the Political Party Funding Act including the limits as well as the President’s powers to make a final determination.

[WATCH]
Day two of the IEC’s symposium on political funding is under way in Durban. The conference is held under the theme: Sustaining Multi-Party Democracy through Enhancing Political Funding Regulation in South Africa. Natasha Phiri reports. pic.twitter.com/fCzXaXWofs

— SABC News (@SABCNews) June 19, 2025

The amount political parties have to declare to the IEC’s political party funding unit, has now doubled. Instead of declaring donations from R100,000 to a limit of R15 million, parties can start disclosing from R200,000 to R30 million.

The president has passed the legislation, despite a pending judgement in the Western Cape High Court on the matter launched by NGO My Vote Counts.

MVC seeks to have the upper limit of donations significantly lowered. The organisation will now write to the first citizen to explain how he reached his conclusion of increasing the thresholds.

Bergman of the MVC says, “We are obviously considering our options at the moment and chatting to our lawyers. But what we will be doing is writing to the president asking him to release this information. PAIA would be the formal process we might have to adopt, but we are just going to be requesting that he releases this in the interest of transparency. There is PAIA, there’s PAJA and the Administrative Act. So, we do have mechanisms through which we can approach this.”

The organisation says the portfolio committee and members of parliament ignored reports from the parliamentary budget office that flagged some issues pertaining to the increase of thresholds.

“There are two key findings. The one that there’s no basis for the original limits that were set. The R100,000 and the R15 million. Secondly, it found SA to be an outlier in that our limits before they were doubled, were already very high, compared to other countries with similar incomes and GDPs. Therefore, the budget office puts together different scenarios for the committee to consider all based on practice with rational explanations of why these could be appropriate. It’s been parliament that has rejected and ignored it essentially,” he adds.

The portfolio committee chair on home affairs explained the considerations that were taken into account for the quantum increases.

Chairperson of Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs says, “You will note that in the Electoral Act, there are three areas that have been observed. One is that the state does not fully fund political parties. Secondly, it’s that the cost of running political parties and also considering inflation have been demonstrated on how we have arrived at these R200,000 and the R30 million, respectively. We have solicited professional body within the institution of parliament. The parliamentary budget office will assist us with modalities and also the lessons drawn in terms of making sure we increase or we decrease the funding. However, the evidence has been proven that we ought to increase the quantum.”

In June, the IEC hosted a political party funding symposium, which was meant to take stock of the challenges and successes of the Act since its implementation. Some themes that dominated the two-day conference included that the IEC should be given more powers to police political funding as a result of some of loopholes.

Related Video | IEC held Symposium 2 months ago