We do not know where 78% of the ANC’s private funding came from

The African National Congress (ANC) emerged as by far the biggest beneficiary of political funding in 2023/24, pulling in more than R1.7 billion in total income.

But civil society watchdog My Vote Counts (MVC) warns that most of the ruling party’s private income remains a mystery.

The ANC’s funding, which dwarfed all other political parties, was split between public and private sources:

• Public funding: R1.19 billion (from the IEC, Parliament, and provincial legislatures)
• Private funding: R527 million, of which only R69 million was disclosed donations and a staggering R413 million (78%) was recorded as “other income” outside the Party Funding Act’s ambit.

The scale of this income means the ANC alone accounted for over 53% of all party funding in South Africa during the reporting year, which amounted to R3.23 billion.

By contrast, the Democratic Alliance (DA) received R645 million overall, split between R432 million in public allocations and R213 million in private funding.

Crucially, most of the DA’s private money was disclosed: it declared R126 million in donations over the R100,000 threshold and a further R29 million under the threshold.

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) reported R309 million in total funding, with R259 million in public allocations and R50 million in private income.

ANC’s secret millions

The Political Funding Act regulates certain types of income, including large donations above R100,000 (now R200,000), smaller donations in aggregate, membership fees, and public allocations from the IEC, Parliament, and provincial legislatures.

Loans are also covered, but only in part, since auditors must confirm they are on commercial terms without revealing the lender or repayment details.

“Attentive readers may be wondering how it is that the ANC walked away with the majority of private funding – approximately half a billion Rand – yet only disclosed R69 million in private donations,” noted MVC.

The answer to this lies in a category the IEC refers to as ‘other income outside the ambit of the Act’.

Funds that fall outside the Act are reported as “other income,” such as proceeds from property sales, investments, or fundraising events.

This category is largely opaque: parties declare the amounts but not the sources.

For the ANC, this is especially significant as it is 78% of its private funding, leaving the public with no way of knowing where the money came from.

Joel Bregman from MVC said that there is “no indication of what the source of this money could be.”

“The lack of information about the source of the ANC’s other income permits endless speculation – and this is precisely the problem.”

The ANC had not responded to Newsday’s questions by the time of publication. If a comment is received, it will be added.

Elections and accountability

The timing intensifies concerns. “We do not know the source of almost 80% of the ANC’s private income for the reporting period – a period that ended just two months short of our 2024 general elections.”

Private funding across the board surged before the elections, with parties raising R1.05 billion in private money compared to just R367 million the year before.

But only 31.8% of this was disclosed; the rest fell into unregulated categories such as donations under the threshold, membership fees, or “other income.”

With President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government having recently doubled the disclosure threshold from R100,000 to R200,000, transparency may shrink even further.

“It is alarming that we don’t know where almost 80% of the ANC’s private funding came from for the reporting period,” said MVC.

“Without ensuring we as citizens have the ability to scrutinise all sources of party income, our efforts to hold parties to account over their funding sources, and limit the potential for private interests to influence our politics, is greatly hampered.”

A tilted playing field

The ANC’s R1.7 billion haul was more than double that of the DA and over five times that of the EFF.

Together, the ANC and DA accounted for 73% of all political funding, underlining how concentrated resources remain in South African politics.

MVC warns that this funding imbalance, combined with weak enforcement, entrenches incumbents and distorts democratic competition.

“Without greater access to information about parties’ funding sources, their lending activities, and their expenditures, our ability to hold parties to account and detect cases of private interests influencing our politics remains limited,” it says.

For now, the ANC’s books raise the biggest question: who provided the R413 million in unexplained income that carried the ruling party into an election year?