Globally, the topic of political party funding evokes strongly defended positions, partly because of the nasty dynamics that usually arise whenever money and politics cross paths. The primary issue in contention is whether to institute mandatory disclosure legislation, legally compelling parties to reveal their sources of funding, and the likely consequences of such disclosure. Alternatively, a laissez-faire approach may be adopted to party funding, and to determine which parties to exclude from state or public funding. In South Africa, these issues routinely raise public outcry and result in emotive debates pertaining to the expenditure of public finance and accountability. Thus, this article explores contemporary issues on political party funding in South Africa, focusing on recognised parties and examining their sources of funding. This article examines recent media reports on allegations of a lack of accountability on the part of political parties, particularly their apparent reluctance to disclose their sources of funding. It seeks to contribute to the debate on party funding in South Africa, through the use of a qualitative research method using content analysis. The authors contend that officially recognised parties should be audited by a Supreme Audit Institution (the Auditor General South Africa, locally) prior to tabling their annual reports in Parliament. The article concludes that such audit responsibility should not be given to private audit firms in order to avoid possible conflicts of interest, as some audit firms and individual employees may also be funders of some of the political parties.

中文翻译：

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1994年至2017年间南非（不受管制）政党资助的后果

在全球范围内，政党经费筹措的话题引起了强烈捍卫的立场，部分原因是每当资金和政治跨越道路时，通常都会出现令人讨厌的动态。争论的主要问题是是否制定强制性披露立法，是否有法律强制性的当事方披露其资金来源以及此类披露的可能后果。或者，可以采用放任自由的方式为政党提供资金，并确定将哪些政党从国家或公共资金中排除。在南非，这些问题经常引起公众的强烈抗议，并引起有关公共财政支出和问责制的激烈辩论。因此，本文探讨了有关南非政党筹资的当代问题，重点关注公认的政党并研究了其筹资来源。本文研究了最近的媒体报道，这些报道指称政党缺乏问责制，尤其是政党显然不愿透露其资金来源。它试图通过使用采用内容分析的定性研究方法，为有关南非政党资助的辩论做出贡献。作者认为，官方认可的当事方应在议会年度报告之前，由最高审计机构（南非审计长，本地）审计。本文的结论是，不应将此类审计责任赋予私人审计公司，以避免可能的利益冲突，因为某些审计公司和个人雇员也可能是某些政党的出资者。