Dr Albert Kan-Dapaah, the Executive Director, Financial Accountability and Transparency – Africa (FAT-Africa), a civil society organisation, has called for transparency and accountability in the funding of political parties in Ghana.
He said transparency demanded that Ghanaian voters had the right to know how parties were funded in order to make informed choices.
Dr Kan-Dapaah, who was speaking in Accra during a media engagement on political party funding and accountability, said Ghanaians deserved to ask for transparency and disclosures in political party funding and how the money was disbursed.
The programme which was organised by FAT-Africa under the Star-Ghana Initiative, was attended by more than 50 journalists from both the private and public sector media.
He said financiers of most political parties did it with the aim of regaining when the party came into power.
He explained that “This is something we must not accept. That is why there is the need for full accountability and disclosure of political party funding.”
Mr Francis Darko Asare, the Programme Manager, FAT-Africa, called for public funding of political parties.
He said political parties funding in Ghana remained unregulated; declaring that “monies that come to political parties for their campaigns and day to day running are unlimited, undisclosed and unknown”.
“There are serious costs and consequences for the current state of affairs that affect both our nation and even the political parties themselves,” he added.
Mr Darko Asare said under such a system, politics and political systems would be liable to capture by small number of moneybags and moneyed interests including some of foreign origin.
He warned that parties and campaigns stood the risk of becoming conduits for criminal elements to launder illicit money – drug money.
“Perhaps, it is time to make the spending of the monies of Ghanaians by political parties legitimate by providing a framework that regulates the financing of political parties in Ghana.
“We believe that this advocacy must not stop until the powers that be change their minds and decide to their signature to a bill on the Public Funding of Political Parties,” Mr Darko Asare added.
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