Funding political parties very crucial -Minister

Kumasi, July 14, GNA- Mr Sampson Kwaku Boafo, Ashanti Regional Minister on Monday said Ghana, cannot sweep the issue of financing political parties under the carpet and pretend as if it does not exist. He said: "so long as big financiers in the few political parties in the country exist, internal democracy in political parties will always elude us".

Addressing a consultative forum in Kumasi on funding of the electoral process and political parties in Ghana, Mr Boafo said, this is because the political parties would be managed at the whims and caprices of the financiers who would always determine and direct the party what it should do.

The forum was organised by the Electoral Commission (EC) in collaboration with KAB Governance Consult and USAID and attended by representatives of political parties, district assemblies, the security services, labour and professional organisations, judiciary, House of Chiefs and the media.

It was to sensitise the people to discuss the financial challenges of running political parties in the country, recommend for government's consideration ways of improving financing of political parties and ways of election financing, as part of efforts to deepen and strengthen democracy in Ghana.

The Regional Minister said, " we need to encourage debate on the matter so that at the end of it all, we will be able to determine which path will complement our chosen democratic path and sustain good governance".

Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, Chairman of the EC, spoke on "Financing political parties in Ghana, Challenges and alternatives" and noted that public funding of political parties is a wide-spread phenomenon and that the EC is not trying to invent it.

He observed that every government has exploited incumbency in the country and if people have come to the realisation that it is not good, it must be changed collectively as a nation.

Dr Afari-Gyan indicated that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) was a party that was agitating for public funding and now that it has come to power, they will do well to make it work.

Mr Samuel Yorke Aidoo, Ashanti Regional Director of the EC, noted that the task of consolidating political parties in the country was crucial to the socio-economic and political development of the country. The Most Reverend Joseph Osei-Bonsu, Catholic Bishop of Konongo/Mampong Diocese, urged the participants to reflect on what they have learnt and what to be done to nurture the nation's democratic process.