Put A Limit On Political Party Funding – Domelevo Advocates

Former Auditor-General Daniel Yao Domelevo is advocating a limit on how much political parties must spend on their activities during electioneering campaigns.

He insists that if this is not given urgent attention, political parties will spend indiscriminately and come to power only to find means of paying back sources of those monies.

“I think that anyone who invests so much money into coming into office may like to recoup it rightly or wrongly,” he said.

“If especially the person borrowed the money, then it must be refunded to wherever it was borrowed but then what we need to know or to do is to first put a limit on how much one can spend on party funding.”

Mr Domelevo made the suggestion on Ghana Tonight on TV3 on Wednesday, March 22.

He was speaking after many calls for curbs to be put on political party spending as the current open approach breeds corruption.

Earlier in the day, former President John Dramani Mahama at the launch of his campaign funding platform at the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA) also called for the state to fund viable political parties.

The former Auditor-General, however, opined that the use of public resources to fund political parties must be regulated by law.

“The laws that are on the ground as to transparency and accountability for party funding have not be respected or obeyed over the years.

“So, we may have to ensure we have the right legal framework before we put our public resources there, otherwise we are going to open up a waste pipe.”