It pays to keep the ruling party sweet as generations of boardroom chiefs have probably confided at the 19th hole, but time and context render the best of companies hypocritical. Take the ‘surprise’ revelation in the IEC’s Political Party Funding Declaration Report on Tuesday that Naspers donated R1m to the ANC in November last year. The more ideologically bound conservative predecessors of the current pragmatic Naspers boardroom incumbents must be turning in their graves. The Naspers titles I competed against while writing for the Cape Times in the ‘80s and ‘90s, were wholly Nat Party-supporting and growing township ‘unrest’ merited far less prominent placement than in what former Western Cape Premier Hernus Kriel once told me to my face was, “Daardie Pravda koerant van jou!” Well, ‘Pravda’s’ parent group, Independent, was later bought out by Dr Iqbal Survé (with ANC/PIC help), and their papers today wholly serve the Zuptoid faction of the ANC while Naspers titles provide way more objective reporting, donations notwithstanding. Story courtesy of MyBroadband. – Chris Bateman
Naspers gave R1 million to the ANC in 2021
By MyBroadband
South African multinational holding company Naspers donated R1m to the ANC in November 2021.
This was revealed in the latest Political Party Funding Declaration Report published by the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) on Tuesday.
According to the IEC, 11 political parties declared private contributions made between September 2021 to December 2021 to the total value of just over R46m.
The number of declarations increased noticeably from the previous periods. The IEC attributed this to an improved understanding and broader acceptance of the Political Party Funding Act and the need for greater transparency concerning political party funding. In addition, the period coincided with the 2021 local government elections period.
“There seems to be a positive correlation between the number and size of donations on the one hand, and the election period on the other,” the IEC said.
In summary, the following amounts were donated to the 11 parties that declared their funding in the third quarter of the 2021/2022 financial year:
- African National Congress (ANC) – R22,803,969.00
- Democratic Alliance (DA) – R12,519,623.47
- ActionSA – R5,072,348.50
- Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) – R3,148,176.00
- Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) – R787,588.00
- Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus) – R484,438.00
- Patriotic Alliance (PA) – R430,000.00
- GOOD – R340,447.00
- African Transformation Movement (ATM) – R200,000.00
- Shosholoza Progressive Party – R150,000.00
- Abantu Integrity Movement (AIM) – R100,000.00
Naspers was a noteworthy new entry to the list of contributors and donors in the third quarter, giving exactly R1m to the ANC on 19 November 2021. The companies under the Naspers umbrella include ecommerce giant Takealot, media publications house Media24, and technology investment company Prosus.
Naspers’ donation was the third biggest made to the ANC, bested by a R15m contribution from the Shell-linked Batho Batho Trust and R5.9m from Harmony Gold Mining. The remaining contributions for the ruling party came from Discovery, which donated R150,000 and 3Sixty Health Solutions, which funded R800,000.
The ANC’s main opposition, the Democratic Alliance, declared the longest list of funders, although its total contributions were lower than the ANC’s, at R12.5m. Its largest donor was Fynbos Ekwiteit, which provided the DA with just shy of R5.1m. The biggest number of donations to the DA came from the German Friedrich Naumann Foundation, which sent respective contributions of R408,524, R329,400 and R102,267.
ActionSA, the newest entrant to South African politics, also received foreign funding from the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung political party foundation to the tune of R530,000.
The IEC noted the foreign funding for both parties was compliant with the Political Party Funding Act and regulations, as the amounts are below R5m and were used specifically for training and skills development.
Multi-party funding
Vodacom South Africa also donated R5m to the Multi-Party Democracy Fund, which distributes the money between the parties according to their representation.
The IEC added there was a pattern of donors making donations to different parties in more or less the same way that the Multi-Party Democracy Fund was intended to operate.
“Donors such as Harmony Gold Mining Company, African Rainbow Minerals, South African Breweries (SAB) and 3Sixty Health are among the corporates that made donations to multiple parties,” the IEC said.
The full breakdown of the private donations and contributions declared by political parties in the third quarter of the 2021/2022 financial year is embedded below.
Read also:
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- Political party funding: Why SA deserves to see every cent
- Investigation finds Eskom contracts were given out in return for ANC funding
