As a loud radical voice of South African politics, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) is not so loud about its finances.

The "red berets" are one of 502 political parties that have not disclosed their funders as per the requirement of the new Political Party Funding Act.

On Thursday, the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) released its first quarterly report on political parties' donations and funds.

In terms of the Act, political parties are required to disclose all donations above R100 000  and the IEC is required to publish all declarations made on a quarterly basis.

Chief Executive for Party Funding, George Mahlangu said, in total 502 parties have not disclosed their funders as per the requirement of the new Act. 

Of these 502, 108 parties have been written to by the IEC request that they comply and they have responded to this communique. 

Mahlangu, however, also indicated that  393 “smaller parties” have given the excuse that they currently do not get any funds from the Multi-Party Democracy Fund as they are not represented in the National Assembly.

As such, these parties has allegedly indicated that they cannot afford to hire registered auditors as required by the IEC to look into their book and make submission to the electoral commission each quarter. 

Mahlangu said as part of the commission’s efforts to foster compliance with the Act, all registered political parties, both represented and unrepresented, were sent reminders to submit their declarations before the due date.

The IEC said, "Although not all political parties responded, a significant number of them, especially among the represented parties, reported in writing that they did not receive qualifying donations in the reporting period. Qualifying donations being those above the threshold amount of R100 000."

Opposed

In March 2018, the EFF was the only party that opposed the bill when it was before the National Assembly (NA).

When the bill was debated in the NA, EFF MP Natasha Ntlangwini opened her speech with the following words: "House chairperson, the EFF rejects this bill because once again it repeats political imbalances without achieving any meaningful transparency."

But according to party leader Julius Malema, the EFF has never opposed the Party Funding Bill.

The EFF has also been embroiled in the VBS Bank Mutual scandal, but the party's leaders maintain that they never received money from the looted bank.

Meanwhile, the IEC said it wouldn't be treating donations received through crowdfunding differently from any other donations.