The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) says it is ready to start holding public hearings into political party funding regulations.
The first hearings will be held in Cape Town on Thursday.
Approximately 4 300 written submissions have already been received.
The IEC’s Chief Electoral Officer, Sy Mamabolo, says the regulations were published for public comment after President Cyril Ramaphosa assented to the Political Party Funding Act in January 2019.
This followed civil society’s demand that there be a legal framework for the public disclosure of the funding of political parties.
Opposition parties have been putting pressure on Cyril Ramaphosa to come clean after it emerged that BOSASA donated R500 000 to his African National Congress (ANC) presidential campaign.
However, Mamabolo says the present act does not explicitly deal with the financing of campaigns for internal party contests.
“That is something that has got to be looked at for the future. Obviously as the commission, we are circumscribed by what is in the statute book and for the future, it’s something that perhaps must be looked at quite closely by Parliament and when amended then it will fall within the scope of the Act,” explains Mamabolo.
