Ramaphosa proclaims new laws to put more ‘secret’ money in the hands of politicians
President Cyril Ramaphosa has issued a proclamation amending the regulations on political party funding in South Africa, doubling the thresholds for when funding needs to be declared, and for how much a single donar can give.
The proclamation impacts the Political Party Funding Act (PPFA), which was enacted in 2018 and enforced from 2021.
The Act was designed to promote transparency by regulating how political parties receive public and private funding.
At the time of implementation, it required disclosure of private donations above R100,000 and capped individual contributions at R15 million per year, while banning donations from foreign governments and state entities.
However, Ramaphosa has now proclaimed that this can be doubled to R200,000 for disclosure and R30 million for an individual contribution.
In 2024, the Electoral Matters Amendment Act (EMAA) was passed to accommodate independent candidates, granting them access to public funding and allowing them to contest national and provincial elections.
However, the EMAA controversially removed the PPFA’s disclosure thresholds and donation limits, pending a presidential proclamation that was delayed.
This created a legal vacuum for some time until the courts reinforced it.
The National Assembly then resolved to raise the minimum disclosure threshold and increase the maximum permissible donation per donor per financial year.
This resolution is now in effect.
According to civil advocacy group My Vote Counts (MVC), South Africa now faces a much more secretive political funding system.
It said it would also be easier for private interests to influence political parties and for corruption to occur.
“This is a politically expedient power grab that diminishes our ability to exercise constitutional rights, namely, our political rights and our right of access to information,” the group said.
Hidden hands in deeper pockets
The main issue, MVC said, is that the details of all donations under R200,000 will not be known to the public.
This is a significant sum, with the state never providing a legitimate reason as to why the details should be hidden from public view in the first place.
Disclosures over the past four years have shown that a handful of wealthy individuals dominate private political funding in the country. MVC said these players can now have even greater influence.
“Doubling the amount a donor can donate to a party in a year to R30 million will give donors an even greater ability to have an outsized influence on our political system,” the group said.
“And because the law does not regulate donations from related parties through the different legal entities they control, wealthy donors can now have an even more significant impact.”
MVC said that it will consider legal options to challenge Ramaphosa’s proclamation.
The group launched a legal challenge against the Constitutionality of the PPFA in 2023, which was only heard in February 2025. Judgment in the matter is still pending.
In the challenge, the group argued that the original limits were not formulated with reference to empirical evidence and were therefore irrational and unlawful.
It asked the court to find the limits unconstitutional and refer them back to Parliament for remedying.
It also asked the court to find that the President’s power to make the final determination on the limits was also unconstitutional because it placed too much power in a conflicted officeholder who is both head of the Executive and, in most cases, the head of a political party.
“Should our case succeed, the amendments to the Act will be set aside with full retrospective effect, including the determination of these new limits,” it said.
The president’s proclamation can be read below:
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