By Siyabonga Mkhwanazi
The ANC continued to get the biggest slice of the cake when the IEC was allocating funds to political parties represented in Parliament.
In the annual report on political party funding, which was tabled in Parliament this week, the IEC showed that it had disbursed more than R162 million to the parties in the national legislature and the funding is based on the number of seats each party occupies.
It is shown that for the 2021/22 financial year, the ANC received more than R70 million from the IEC.
The ruling party was followed by the DA which got over R29m. The EFF received almost R20m from the commission.
The Freedom Front Plus received just over R9m and the IFP got R6.9m.
The ACDP got R4.6m while the ATM received R3.7m and the UDM received R3.6m.
The NFP received R2.9m and the Good Party got R2.6m.
Al Jama-Ah, which recently got its councillor Thapelo Amad elected as mayor of the City of Johannesburg after a coalition with the ANC, EFF and other small parties, received R2.5m from the IEC during the year under review.
The African Independent Congress was allocated R2.1m by the IEC.
Cope received R2.1m and the PAC was given R1.9m during the last financial year.
The IEC also revealed in the report that millions were donated by a number of funders to political parties during the course of the year under the Political Party Funding Act.
The ANC has complained that the Political Party Funding Act has contributed to the lack of financial support from donors.
The law forces parties to disclose their funders at the end of each quarter and these disclosures are made public.
However, the ANC has said it wants to make changes to the law to increase the threshold of the amount donated by a single donor.
This would enable it to get more financial backing from funders.
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