Good party ordered to pay R90,000 after court finds undeclared donation

The Electoral Court has ordered Good party to pay a total of R90,000 for contravening various sections of the Political Funding Act for failure to disclose a donation it received.

The court also ordered Electrox Properties, the donor company, to pay an administrative penalty of R40,000 for also having contravened the same act.

The Electoral Commission of South Africa’s (IEC’s) case before the Electoral Court was that in the run-up to the 2021 local government elections, the political party had bought T-shirts and other campaign material worth R900,000 from Kairos Communications.

The T-shirts were delivered to and used by Good. Kairos Communications issued an invoice to Good for payment of the donated T-shirts. Good did not itself pay this invoice, but it was paid on its behalf by Electrox Properties.

This donation of R900,000 was not disclosed by the party to the IEC, nor did it reflect in the annual financial statements of the party for the relevant financial period.

This only came to light after Shaun August, a former member of Good, who, after he left it under somewhat acrimonious circumstances, blew the whistle on the fact that the party did not disclose to the IEC the R900,000 donation it received from Electrox Properties.

August was the Good official who had been responsible for negotiating the procurement of the T-shirts and who was directly responsible for securing the donation.

The IEC contended that this undeclared donation was unlawful in that it contravened certain provisions of the act, read with the Regulations Regarding the Funding of Political Parties, Independent Representatives and Independent Candidates issued in terms of section 24(2) of the act.

The IEC asked that the offending parties be penalised and that penalties be imposed on them in terms of the regulations.

Good and its secretary-general Brett Herron opposed the application and denied that it had received an undisclosed R900,000 donation.

It filed an answering affidavit and challenged the IEC’s version, but the court found that its version was inadequately supported and ultimately rejected it as far-fetched and untenable.

Judge Leicester Adams, in a judgment on Wednesday, said August’s unequivocal assertion that the R900,000 was not paid by Good, but by a sponsor, was not seriously challenged by the party in its answering affidavit in this application.

Adams said what was conspicuously missing from the party’s affidavits was an explanation of how it paid for the T-shirts worth R900,000 it received from Kairos Communications and proof of such payment.

Adams found Good, Herron and Electrox failed to comply with their respective obligations in terms of Political Funding Act and the regulations.

He ordered the party to pay an administrative penalty of R50,000 and ordered Good and Herron, jointly and severally, to pay the IEC an administrative penalty of R40,000 for having contravened the act.

Adams ordered each party to pay its own costs.

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