Does the ANC have researchers holed up in some of the expansive floors of its central Johannesburg headquarters who have magically eradicated the budget deficit and conjured up more state money to fund its ever-increasing to-do list?
Some of these tasks, while still nearly impossible to bankroll, make sense — such as the Land Claims Court or the basic income grant, for instance. There are others, such as the nationalisation of the SA Reserve Bank, that are downright mental.
The proposal to increase the government grant to political parties in order to sidestep potential influence from dodgy donors is a good one on the surface, but the context and the timing in SA is simply all kinds of wrong.
First, has the ANC not noticed that a decade of its own mismanagement of the economy and looting has obliterated government finances and left SA Inc broke, with a begging bowl in hand?
You would think party hacks over at Luthuli House are living under a rock — so politically and economically out of touch were the comments to the Sunday Times by ANC treasurer-general Paul Mashatile, indicating that the party wants the state to increase its grant to political parties, to effectively bankroll their operations.
The report said that if Mashatile had his way, grants to political parties would be increased from the current R164m a year to R500m a year. To make matters worse, finance minister Tito Mboweni concurred with this, saying he was willing to entertain such a discussion with political parties.
Both the ANC treasurer and the finance minister should be well aware that state finances are so constrained that the government is on a collision course with public sector unions because it has reneged on a wage deal it entered — because it simply cannot afford to pay the increase to public servants.
‘A democracy that cannot support itself runs the risk of being captured by outside donors,’ says Mboweni
Put simply, there are other priorities including, well, perhaps helping Eskom keep the lights on? Or for a basic income grant amid the devastating impact of the Covid-19-induced lockdown?
"A democracy that cannot support itself runs the risk of being captured by outside donors," Mboweni told Sunday Times political editor Sibongakonke Shoba. Talk about shutting the door after the horse has bolted.
Affordability aside, it is said that political parties can function on shoestring budgets outside of election cycles, so it would not take much for the state to provide comfortably for them. But such a move is politically off-putting for many reasons.
The most obvious ones are the constant revelations of how the ANC benefited from private donations from less than savoury characters appearing before the state capture commission — think the Guptas, Bosasa and Blackhead Consulting’s Edwin Sodi, the latter arrested two weeks ago — told the commission of monies given to Mashatile as well as his predecessor, Zweli Mkhize, ostensibly as donations to the party.
Mashatile raised Germany as a good example of the state funding political parties.
Nongovernmental organisation My Vote Counts has been a significant voice in the lobby for greater transparency in political party funding in SA. It notes another aspect of the German model that is worth aspiring to: that is, to ban government contractors or enterprises with direct financial ties to the government from donating to political parties.
Now wouldn’t that be a nifty quid pro quo in exchange for more taxpayer funds?
But it is one the ANC is unlikely to agree to, given the number of Edwin Sodis in its closet.
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