Bagbin advocates law on political funding activities

The Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, has advocated a law to ensure transparency, probity and accountability in funding political activities.

Under the law, he explained that all political office holders, from the president to assembly members, must disclose source of their campaign funds and how they spend them to check the opulence displayed at campaign rallies with most of the people leaving the rallies without listening to the candidate.

According to Mr Bagbin, who is also the Member of Parliament for Nadowli/Kaleo Constituency in the Upper West Region, this would also inculcate transparency, probity and accountability of candidates before they take office saying, “We need to reduce the cost of running political parties and the cost of doing politics and to stop rich people from capturing the positions in political parties for their parochial interest.

“Like some of the developed democracies, our country should allocate some money to the funding of political parties because the state and the public has an interest in their activities, they must contribute towards the campaign of political candidates.

“After the law has been promulgated, the manifesto of political parties must be regulated to sync with the national agenda and the state must sponsor professionals to help the parties come up with realistic and implementable manifestoes and not just empty promises,” he noted. -myjoyonline.com