- The Electoral Court found that GOOD, Brett Herron and Electrox Properties failed to disclose and account for a R900,000 donation connected to the party's 2021 election campaign.
- The court dismissed GOOD's defence that the payment was unrelated to the party, saying the evidence showed that Electrox paid for campaign material on GOOD's behalf.
- GOOD says it plans to seek leave to appeal, arguing the judgment was made without hearing oral evidence and relied on what it calls fabricated claims by a disgruntled former official.
The Electoral Court has found that the GOOD Party, its secretary general Brett Herron and donor company Electrox Properties broke the Political Funding Act by not disclosing or accounting for a R900,000 donation linked to the party's 2021 local government election campaign.
In a judgment delivered on Wednesday, Judge LR Adams said GOOD had broken Sections 9 and 12 of the Act by not disclosing a reportable donation and by failing to properly account for party income. The court fined GOOD R50,000 for not disclosing the donation and handed down a separate R40,000 penalty, shared by the party and Herron, for failing to meet accounting requirements. Electrox Properties was also fined R40,000. Each party was told to pay its own legal costs.
The case came from GOOD's purchase of T-shirts and other campaign gear worth R1.97 million before the 2021 municipal elections. The Electoral Commission said Electrox Properties paid R900,000 toward that invoice for GOOD, making it a donation in kind that should have been reported under the Political Funding Act.
Court rejects GOOD's explanation
The main question before the court was whether the R900,000 payment was a political donation or just an unrelated business deal.
GOOD, Herron and Electrox denied that they made or received an undisclosed donation. Electrox said the payment was for a separate business deal, while GOOD argued that it never received a reportable donation. The court did not accept that explanation.
Judge Adams found that the evidence showed Electrox Properties paid R900,000 to Incorp Trade and Investment, a company related to Kairos Communications, which supplied GOOD's campaign material. Kairos immediately used the payment to clear GOOD's outstanding invoice. The court concluded this meant Electrox had paid for the party's election material.
The court said the payment clearly counted as a donation because it was money paid on behalf of a political party for its expenses.
Whistleblower complaint triggered investigation
The investigation started after former GOOD official Matthew August filed a complaint with the Electoral Commission in June 2023, saying the party had not reported sponsorship it got for its 2021 election campaign.
The court noted that August had been the senior party official in charge of negotiating the purchase of campaign material and arranging the sponsorship. His story was backed up by invoices, payment records, emails and an independent investigation by the Electoral Commission.
GOOD tried to distance itself from August by arguing that any arrangement was only between him and businessman Saravan Govender. The court rejected this, finding that August had acted in his official role and that Herron was copied on much of the correspondence about the payment and campaign material.
Tiles defence dismissed
Electrox Properties also said the R900,000 payment was part of a business deal involving tiles for a project in the Eastern Cape.
Judge Adams dismissed this explanation as unlikely, saying it did not fit with the invoice sent to GOOD and with the rest of the documents. The court said the denials by the respondents were "far-fetched and untenable" and accepted the Electoral Commission's version of events.
The court also noted that GOOD never gave a credible explanation or proof of how it paid for the R900,000 worth of T-shirts it received and used during the campaign.
Transparency and accountability
In explaining the penalties, the court said the Political Funding Act was created to promote transparency about who funds political parties so that voters can make informed choices and to help prevent corruption or undue influence over public officials.
The judge said this was not just a minor mistake, but a case where the evidence pointed to a deliberate failure to disclose a reportable donation. That, the judge said, made penalties appropriate.
A separate claim against the Govender companies was dropped after the court found that Electrox Properties was the company that donated for GOOD.
GOOD announces appeal
Within hours of the ruling, Herron said GOOD would seek leave to appeal. He said the party operates on a "very modest budget" and "scrupulously adheres" to the requirements of the Political Funding Act.
Herron argued the Electoral Court made its decision without hearing oral arguments or evidence and claimed it relied on the fabrications of a disgruntled former party official who was expelled for pocketing party donations.
According to Herron, senior counsel advised the party that the court made several errors and that these mistakes directly affected the outcome.
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