State must fund parties — LPG, PPP, NDP
Three political parties have reiterated the need for the state to develop effective strategies for funding political parties to help them participate fully in the governance processes.
The effective funding of political parties would effectively checkmate government programmes and curb the incidence of corruption, since the parties would be active players in the process.
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Representatives of the Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG), the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) and the National Democratic Party (NDP) made this known to the Daily Graphic in separate interviews following recent findings that unregulated party financing had contributed to the stagnation of Ghana’s score on the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) over the last decade.
LPG
The National Organiser of the LPG, Mr Yaw Tano Asane, asked the Electoral Commission (EC) to exercise its powers in respect of the declaration of assets, liabilities and audited accounts by political parties in a bid to check political party corruption.
He argued that although the implementation of the Political Parties Act, 2000 (Act 574) to the letter would not totally eradicate corruption, it would promote some level of accountability.
Mr Asane, therefore, urged the EC to strictly enforce the Political Parties’ Law to guide the behaviour of political parties in Ghana.
That, he explained, would stem the tide of monetisation in politics, adding that “we are not going to get anywhere in my view even if the laws are strictly enforced, but at least it may bring the perception down to certain levels”, he said.
He posited that there are some political parties that existed merely as “election machines” and become moribund during inter-election periods, stressing that should the state decide to fund political parties, a lot of those people who did not even have any locus to become founders of parties would now come up to form parties only to fizzle out after elections.
PPP
For his part the Director of Communication of the PPP, Mr Felix Mantey, said political party financing was very important in all democratic processes, hence the need for state funding of political parties for the development of a vibrant multiparty democracy in Ghana.
He said the suggestion that when politicians come to power, they tend to try all means to recoup the investment while vying for office may not be wholly accurate, since reports of the Auditor-General on the Public Accounts had captured a range of individuals and institutions that might not necessarily be active agents of political parties.
NDP
The Secretary of the National Democratic Party (NDP), Alhaji Mohammed Frimpong, said the idea of political party funding by individuals and institutions with the hope of getting favours from parties once they won power was real.
He said it would be very rational and justified for the state to fund political parties and called for a well-structured mechanism to share resources equally to political parties.
He opined that there should be effective participation in governance by the citizenry, to minimise the practice and incidence of corruption so that any political founder or individual who ascended power would think twice.