Political party campaign financing major cause of corruption — Forum

Stakeholders at an anti-corruption event have identified financing of the campaigns of political parties as one of the major causes of corruption in the country. 

They have, therefore, called for legal and institutional reforms to ensure that illicit finances do not flow to political parties and candidates vying for political positions because people use campaign financing as a stepping stone to loot state resources.

Also, they have called for a strong asset declaration regime, a robust public procurement framework, more funding for anti-graft bodies and strengthening the capacities and independence of such institutions to enhance the fight against corruption.

Pledge against corruption

Dubbed “Pledge against Corruption” (PAC) campaign, the event was organised by the Ghana Anti-Corruption Campaign Coalition “, a group of civil society organisations (CSOs) committed to the fight against corruption.

It was on the theme: “Elections and Anti-Corruption: What is the next Government Agenda?

The event was used to highlight the negative effects of corruption and to encourage presidential and parliamentary candidates, political parties and other political actors to pledge to help in the fight against the canker.

Representatives of some political parties, such as the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the Convention Peoples Party (CPP), the All Progressive Congress (APC), the Movement for Change (MFC), the Ghana Union Movement (GUM) and the New Force also used the platform to articulate how they intended to fight corruption in the event that they won power in the December elections.

Party and campaign financing

A Senior Member of the CPP, Kwame Jantuah, said the lack of transparency as to who funded political parties and campaigns was a major driving force for corruption.

He said political and campaign financing did not only breed corruption, but also gave rise to impunity and illegality, as party financers were normally given the freedom to engage in all sorts of activities, including illegal ones such as illegal mining, popularly known as “galamsey”

The problem is a major challenge that confronts all the political parties, making it extremely difficult to be eradicated.

“One of the major challenges with political parties in this country is that we cannot institute the due system, because the ordinary people do not have the money, and therefore the politicians must find a way to get money’’, he said.

Contributing to the discussion, the Executive Director of the Ghana Integrity Initiative, Mary Awelana Addah, said one of the best ways to sanitise political party and campaign financing was to pass a new law or amend the Political Parties Act, 200 (Act 574).

Such a move, she said, would ensure that candidates standing for elections were also scrutinised, just as the accounts of political parties were scrutinised by the Electoral Commission (EC) as stipulated by Act 574.

“Act 574 does not help us to sanitise campaign financing because only the political parties, and not the candidates, can be scrutinised by the EC. However, we are aware that most of the campaign finances and donations go through the candidates and not the political parties,” she said.

Other views

In the view of the presidential candidate of the APC, Hassan Ayariga, the best way to fight corruption was to have attitudinal change among Ghanaians due to the fact that many people had normalised corruption in their daily dealings.

A former Attorney-General, Joe Ghartey, who represented the NPP, said although much needed to be done against corruption, the government must be lauded for passing laws such as the Whistle Blowers Act, the Anti-Money Laundering Act, the Public Procurement Act and the establishment of the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP).