State funding will curb monetisation of politics – Dan Botwe
The Minister-designate for Local Government,Decentralisation and Rural Development, Daniel Kweku Botwe, has advocated state funding of political parties in the country.
This, he said, could be the panacea to the canker of monetisation that had engulfed the political atmosphere, starting from the national to the grass-roots level.
According to him, state funding of political parties would ensure stronger political parties, Members of Parliament would have a very good relationship with their parties, hence a stronger Parliament and a much stronger democracy.
Mr Botwe, affectionatelycalled Dan Botwe, made the suggestion on Monday during his vetting by the Appointments’ Committee of Parliament.
He pointed out that the monetisation in Ghanaian politics was due to the state of political parties.
He questioned how many of the political parties submitted financial statements at the end of the year and showed their exact source of funding.
“When you take the two major political parties, they cannot show their books and how people pay dues in every constituency and how much they get.
”So at the end of the day, where do they get all these funds to do the works that they do?
“However, if there is funding for political parties, they will be very strong on their own. This will reduce monetisation of elections and create greater discipline and greater control from the parties,” he stated.
The former New Patriotic Party (NPP) General Secretary cited Tanzania as a perfect example, where Ghana could learn the system of state-funding of parties.
He indicated that in Tanzania, political parties would have huge sums of money at the end of the year to run their programmes, which makesthem stronger and free from individual influence.
The Minister-designate argued that in Ghana, elections were conducted every year and yet offices of political parties were not strong and financially sound.
He said, “That is why they are not able to exercise any leverage, which is why monetization has engulfed the system, leading to high attrition in Parliament.”
Mr. Dan Botwe observed that with state funding, political parties could even be made to specially select a certain number of people to Parliament in addition to those elected at the parliamentary primaries for election to the house.
This, he said, would encourage people to work harder and also help Parliament to retain some of its hard-working members in the House.
-peacefmonline.com
