The Technical Advisor of the National Dialogue on Campaign Finance for Star Ghana, Mr. Mawuli Dake has revealed that campaign financing is one major reason why corruption has swelled in Ghana's government.

According to him, although Ghana is exercising democracy at its very best yet the rate at which political parties use up funds during campaigns in their pursuit to administer the country easily leads to misappropriation of nation’s funds which hampers National development.

 

 

“Democratic governance in Ghana is better. The nation is doing so well but corruption is one thing that is hampering better utilization of our democracy.

“In our investigations, we have come to know that Political Parties Campaign and Election Finance system breed corruption in country administration,” he said.

Campaign financing has emerged as a crucial issue that has serious implications for consolidating and perfecting Ghana’s democracy yet has the tendency to undermine gains made. The where’s and hows campaign monies are raised and spent does not does not only influence Ghana’s intra-party and national political votes but is also a tremendous influencer of both economic and development choices and policies beyond elections.

STAR Ghana foundation and its partners propose the national dialogue in campaign financing in Ghana as an important step to starting a conversation and triggering some collective action to help safeguard and consolidate the country’s democracy.

 

 

The program was organized purposely to foster dialogue among stakeholders on the important issue of campaign finance and cost of elections to highlight the issues, engage citizens and relevant actors in confronting the challenge. It also was set to generate a set of solutions and action items that can then be pursued and led by different stakeholders to help define a pathway to improve Ghana’s political finance system.

Briefing the press on the causative agents of the challenge, Mr. Dake revealed that per the research made, the various party delegates are a great challenge for the reason that some are paid huge sums of monies before votes could be bestowed on behalf of aspirants during primaries.

 

He suggested that instead of mandating delegates to decide during the primaries, members of the party within the constituency could be given the chance to choose in order to put an end to the enticement issues.

“Delegates enticement is one key challenge during campaign finance. Wherever we have been, that is the issue people seem to talk about in relation to why corruption is rampant with political parties.

"It has to change by giving party members the power to vote during primaries because instead of helping the communities, all the politicians are concerned about is the delegates,” he said.

 

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According to the Ashanti Regional Director of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Mr. Arthur Wilson, the question regarding campaign financing contributing to corruption in Ghana is just not about political parties only but the larger community.

He clarified that the state is been held captive through the dictatorship scheme of investors which one-way or the other affect decision that contributes to the developmental projects outlined by governments.

“Research shows that as we can witness in the room, majority of the citizen do not buy into the idea of public finance of campaigning for political parties,” he enlightened.

“When u compare it to the statoscope, it is getting to a point where financiers of parties are holding the states into hostage. You see more and more dictating the tins that re done in the country.

 

 

“We see a situation where parties are been controlled in one way or the other. And the fact that competitions that is essential from multi-party democracy is going abyss. Should it be the government coming in or we should continue with private financing of political campaigns,” he added.

The current funding of no direct public funding to candidates and parties leaves them susceptible to dependence on, and the influence of few rich private financiers. with no clear statutory disclosure, and reporting provisions that mandate presidential or parliamentary candidates or their campaigns to disclose and account for their campaign funds as provisions have been designed with political parties in mind and only target parties.

 

 

Mr. Wilson explained that the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana has a key role to play in making sure that political party financing during elections is regulated per the authorization of the Ghana Constitution yet the EC has isolated itself from its directive amidst the laws that dictates how political parties should be formed.

He assured that if those laws were enforced, the concerns would not be a challenge.

“For me, I believe strongly that, whether it is private financing or state financing, we need to look at the law as provided for in the 1992 constitution (Article 55), the 1992 political party Act and the Revised 2000 Political Party Acts.

“It makes provision for party financing. And at the same time the electoral commission per our constitution is given some roles to perform to ensure that Political parties to some extent is regulated.

“The electoral commission sit aloof and does not force political parties to declare their assets. When even they do, the EC does not follow up,” he added.