More accountability for campaign financing needed – panellist

Constitutional Reform Confab

During a symposium on constitutional reform, held at the Education Lecture Theatre of the University of Guyana (UG), the spotlight was thrown on the need for increased financial accountability to be exhibited by political parties, especially during the elections period.
Considering the important role political parties play in the overall scheme of the constitution, Lachmansingh noted that fiscal accountability of political parties could also benefit from reform. He called for affirmative action in this regard.
“Elections are one part of it, so how do we fix those things? I’ve said this for a long time: political parties are the most important organisations in our political system without regulations, without any kind of insistence on things like financial accountability,” he said.
He noted that while there has been discourse between the parties around election time, there is a need for the parties to take that final step in regard to financial accountability. He said there are also constraints on how much time the country can afford before real change is introduced.
Constitutional reform had featured prominently in the APNU+AFC coalition’s pre-elections manifesto, but according to Senior Counsel Ralph Ramkarran, those changes have not come quickly enough after almost two years of the coalition in office.
Ramkarran noted that the electoral promise was to advance reform in the first year in office. However, he observed that there have just been expressions of the need for countrywide consultations and the budgetary allocation of $80M in the 2017 budget for the hearings.
“There is no mechanism to encourage that conversation,” Ramkarran said. “The structure that we have now does not encourage political parties to have conversations with each other. They talk a lot in Parliament. Outside…”
The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) had had political parties contesting the 2015 General and Regional elections sign a code of conduct that included commitments on financial accountability. The document had the parties affirm their “commitment to adhere to strict standards of financial probity, accountability and transparency, and to submit in a timely manner to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) a Declaration of Election Expenses.”
It was not enough, however, to prevent complaints from the Opposition that the coalition’s commitments to financial donors to its campaign had influenced several questionable decisions it had made afterwards.
Transparency Institute of Guyana Inc. had called on the coalition Government to reveal the identities of all its donors pre- and post-elections 2015, and the amount and/or value of their contributions.
This demand had come after statements had been made by senior Government officials suggesting that individuals who had contributed to the coalition’s election campaign were being rewarded and there was nothing odd or wrong about that.
Prompted for a respond in this regard, President David Granger had made it clear that he will not be releasing the names of his party’s donors, since it is not a requirement of the law. Insisting that it was not dirty money, he added that the donors, for fear of victimisation, had also requested that their identities not be disclosed.

“It is not dirty money, but I know very well that some people can be very vindictive… Certain people in political parties could be very vindictive, and once they discover that corporations give money to parties, they can bring economic sanctions against those companies,” he had said.
“It has been requested by some people, although we are sure the money is clean, that their identities not be disclosed simply because their businesses will be sanctioned, or blackmailed, or boycotted by other political parties,” he explained.
On that note, President Granger had reaffirmed Government’s commitment to introduce modern campaign financing laws in time for the next General and Regional Elections in 2020.
Organised by the Carter Center, the symposium was held under the theme ‘Perspectives on Guyana’s Constitutional Reform Process’. The panel featured Conflict Resolution Specialist Dr Lawrence Lachmansingh, UG’s Deputy Vice Chancellor Dr Paloma Mohammed, Elections Commissioner Vincent Alexander, Attorney-at-Law Gino Persaud, and former Constitutional Reform Commissioner Ralph Ramkarran, SC.
There were no government ministers present at Friday’s symposium, which was supported by the United Kingdom (UK) High Commission. However, the parliamentary opposition was amply represented.