ATC240301: Report of the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs on the Electoral Matters Amendment Bill [ B 42 - 2023](National Assembly – sec 75)], dated 1 March 2024

Home Affairs

Report of the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs on the Electoral Matters Amendment Bill [ B 42 - 2023](National Assembly – sec 75)], dated 1 March 2024.

 

The Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs (“the Committee”) having considered the Electoral Matters Amendment Bill [B 42 - 2023] referred to it and classified by the Joint Tagging Mechanism (JTM) as a section 75 Bill, reports the Bill with amendments [B 42A - 2023] as follows:

 

1.         Background and referral of the Bill.

 

On 7 December 2023, the Minister of Home Affairs introduced the Electoral Matters Amendment Bill   [42 – 2023] and the Speaker of the National Assembly referred it to the Committee through Announcements, Tabling and Committees (ATC) No 175—2023 of the Sixth Parliament. The Bill was tagged as section 75 and published in the Government Gazette No 49836 of 7 December 2023.

 

2.         Objects of the Bill

 

The objects of the Bill are:

1. to provide for the regulation of the private and public funding of independent candidates and independent representatives and matters incidental thereto.
2. to amend the title, long title and preamble.
3. to insert and substitute definitions.
4. to amend the names of the Funds.
5. to preclude the Electoral Commission from accepting donations to the Multi-Party and Independents Democracy Fund which it has reason to believe are the proceeds of crime.
6. to empower the Commission to invest money in the Funds in any bank registered in terms of the Banks Act, 1990.
7. to proscribe the attachment of money in the Funds by certain persons.
8. to provide for the right of political parties, independent candidates and independent representatives to refuse donations.
9. to repeal section 10.
10. to amend the provisions relating to the accounting obligations of represented and unrepresented political parties.
11. to provide for independent representatives and independent candidates to account for income.
12. to provide for the offence of making a donation to a political party, a member of a political party, an independent candidate or an independent representative in the expectation that the party, member, candidate or representative will influence the award of benefits or relaxation of conditions.
13. to provide for the offence of making a donation to a member of a political party to circumvent the provisions of Chapter 3.
14. to provide for offences by a member of a political party of accepting a donation to circumvent the provisions of Chapter 3 or appropriating the donation for themselves.
15. to amend the powers of the President to make regulations on certain matters.
16. to amend Schedule 2 in respect of the formula for the allocation of money in the Funds on a proportional and equitable basis, in respect of the upper limit of donations and the disclosure limit for donations; and
17. to amend the Electoral Act, 1998; the Electoral Commission Act, 1996; the Electronic Communications Act, 2005 and the Financial Management of Parliament and Provincial Legislatures Act, 2009; so as to make consequential amendments resulting from the introduction of independent candidates to contest elections of the National Assembly and provincial legislatures.

 

3.         Parliamentary process.

3.1.      The Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs and the Select Committee on Security and Justice agreed to a joint briefing by the Minister of Home Affairs on the contents of the Bill. The joint briefing took place on 12 December 2023. The Committees also jointly advertised for public comment. The call for public comments commenced on 14 December 2023 on the Parliament website and social media. This was followed by advertisements in the print media and radio from 11 January 2024. The closing date for public comments was on 26 January 2024. The Committees received 13 submissions and 10 of these submissions were substantive and the other three (3) were a few sentences that were in support of the Bill.

 

3.2. On 6 January 2024, the Committees conducted a virtual public hearing and the Content Advisor briefed the Committees on the summary of the submissions, followed by public hearings. The following organisations and individuals submitted written and oral inputs to the Committees: Inclusive Society Institute, My Vote Counts, Dr Albertus Schoeman, People’s Legal Centre and #UniteBehind, Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (CASAC), Mr Michael Atkins, Congress of South African Trade Union (Cosatu), Zackie2024 NPC, African National Congress (ANC), Ms Nadia Madlala, Mosuli Qhaba, Prof. Dirk Kotze from Unisa and Mr Raphael Mokiti.

3.3. The Committees invited the Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies; the Joint Standing Committee on Financial Management of Parliament, the Standing Committee on Finance, and the Select Committee on Finance to attend the public hearings.

3.4. The Department of Communications and Digital Technologies, Parliament, the Department of Home Affairs, the Independent Electoral Commission and Parliament Legal Services attended the public hearings and responded to the submissions and the public hearings on 9 February 2024. After receiving the inputs from all these stakeholders, the inputs from the submissions and the public hearings were considered.

3.5. National Assembly Rule 286(4)(i) requires that “the Committee, after due deliberation, must consider a “Motion of Desirability” on the subject matter of the Bill and, if rejected, must immediately table the Bill and its report. On 14 February 2024, the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs agreed that the Electoral Matters Amendment Bill [ B 42 – 2023] was desirable. This was followed by the deliberations on the Bill.

 

3.6. On 19 and 20 February 2024, the Committee deliberated on the Bill and requested the State Law Advisers to start with the drafting of the  A-version of the Bill [B 42A - 2023]. On 22 February 2024, the State Law Advisers briefed the Committee on the A version of the Bill and approved it. This was followed by clause-by-clause deliberations to ensure that all changes had been incorporated on 1 March 2024.

 

3.7. After the clause-by-clause deliberations on 1 March 2024, the Committee considered and adopted both A list and B versions of the Bill as a true reflection of the committee’s deliberations. The following Political Parties expressed their views:

• The African National Congress (ANC) supported the Bill.
• Democratic Alliance (DA), African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP), Freedom Front Plus (FF+) and Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) objected to the Bill primarily due to concerns about the impact on smaller parties of changing the funding formula and pending regulations related to disclosure threshold and upper donation limits.

 

4. Recommendation.

The Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs recommends that the House adopt the report on the bill and approve the second reading of the Electoral Matters Amendment [B 42 B - 2023].

 

Report to be considered.