Dan Botwe, Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development Minister-nominee
Minister-designate for Local Government, Daniel Kweku Botwe, has advocated for the state funding of political parties.
This, he said, could be the panacea to the canker of monetization that has engulfed the political atmosphere from the national to the grassroots level.
According to him, state funding of political parties will ensure stronger political parties, and members of Parliament will have a very good relationship with their parties hence a stronger Parliament and a much stronger democracy.
Mr. Dan Botwe made the call on Monday during his vetting by the Appointments’ Committee of Parliament.
He pointed out that there is monetization in Ghanaian politics because of the state of political parties.
He questioned how many of the political parties could submit financial statements at the end of the year that would show 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 monetization of elections and create greater discipline and greater control from the parties,” he stated.
According to him, in such instances, offices of political parties will not rely on individuals and party governments in power as the case is elsewhere.
The former New Patriotic Party (NPP) General Secretary cited Tanzania as a perfect example where Ghana could learn the state-funding of parties system.
He indicated that in Tanzania, political parties would have huge sums of money at the end of the year to run their programmes, which make stronger and free from individual influence.
The Minister-designate argued that in Ghana, elections are conducted every year and yet offices of political parties are 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 into Parliament in addition to the parliamentary primaries and elections.
This, he said, will encourage people to work harder and also help Parliament to retain some of its hard-working members in the House.
