The Electoral Commission (EC) is working on a Constitutional Instrument (CI) which will enable it track how political parties are funded and allow the political parties to properly account for the source of their funding and how they use it.
There is a widely held perception that political parties appropriate public resources to fund their political activities since the sources of their funding are unknown and undisclosed.
Jean Mensa, the Chairperson of the EC, noted that measures had already been put in place to streamline the activities of the parties to ensure that they are conforming with the law.
“These are issues that have haunted the commission, we have 24 political parties on our register but you hardly find them adhering to basic expectations within the law, so we are looking at audits and got quite a number of them to provide their audit reports.
“We realise that the format in which most of the reports are presented cannot be compared to best international standards so we are working to develop a CI within to regulate the activities of the political parties.
“A CI that will provide a basic template to political parties to follow and you can track funding and they can account for their funds,” Mrs Mensa stressed.
Experts had indicated that political parties also tend to raise resources through fair or foul means for their electioneering campaign and attempt to recoup such resources after elections, thereby deplete the nation’s coffers.
Last year, a report by the Centre for Democratic Development-Ghana (CDD-Ghana) and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) estimated a 59 per cent rise in campaign expenditure.
The report stressed that measures are needed to strengthen and better enforce existing party financing regulation as set out in Article 55 (14-25) of the 1992 Constitution and to continuously improve the citizenry understanding of electoral processes and politics.
-myjoyonline.com
