Opposition Leader and former President Bharrat Jagdeo

Campaign financing funds

…without sources, figures useless – Opposition Leader

The A Partnership for National Unity has refused to disclose the financiers of its extravagant 2015 General and Regional Elections even though the political coalition had promised full public disclosures on its campaign funds. It had said it would provide 60% of the funding of the coalition with the AFC, which reveals it had spent an incredible $400M. This would make the total coalition spending at least $1B.

APNU General Secretary Joseph Harmon

The PNC-led APNU has adopted this position  despite having vigorously preached about the need for transparency and accountability.

APNU General Secretary Joseph Harmon told the Guyana Times on Monday that the Party is willing to reveal the amount of money it utilised for campaign purposes but will not disclose where the money came from.

Its partner in government, the Alliance For Change (AFC) already disclosed that it expended some $400 million dollars for campaigning purposes. They too did not disclose the name of their donors.

GECOM

GECOM Chairman Dr Surujbally

GECOM’s Chairman Dr Surujbally had told the Guyana Times that while GECOM has been pushing for campaign finance legislation there is only so much the body can do. He noted that the responsibility of passing the legislation lies in the hands of the National Assembly and they have taken no direct stance on the issue.

GECOM’s Legal Officer Wanita Barker had also explained to the Guyana Times that the existing legislation governing the campaign financing is “really of no value.”

According to the Legal officer, the current law is antiquated and in dire need of being amended given that it stipulates each party is expected to expend no more that G$25,000 on a single candidate.

She also explained that it does not say when campaigning for elections should start so to ask for parties to submit financial records for any campaigning period would a complicated task. According to Barker, the enforcement has to be detailed.

AFC Treasurer Dominic Gaskin

Jagdeo wants evidence

But, in an invited comment, Opposition Leader and former President Bharrat Jagdeo explained that campaign contribution figures  without their sources would be completely useless as there will be no way whatsoever to verify whether the data released is accurate.

“It does not make sense to just name a figure, they have to give details of the donors so then the public would know if you are speaking the truth then because, if someone doesn’t see his name on the list…then he can easily challenge it,” Jagdeo stated.

He further reasoned that political parties could just, for the sake of politics, release figures, however, if the identity of their donors were released- then that would represent true transparency and accountability. On that note, Jagdeo said if APNU and AFC were prepared to list their donors then it would be groundbreaking and commendable.

“However, if they are not, then it is just a political gimmick,” he highlighted.

Meanwhile, in another section of the media, AFC Treasurer Dominic Gaskin, in revealing the amount of monies spent by his Party for the May 11 General and Regional Elections; explained that they are still waiting on APNU to disclose their figures.

When prompted, Minister Harmon said his Party is still in the process of calculating the net total.

“Election campaigns are expensive things and therefore you, even after your campaign, there are expenses which need to be cleared and clarified. So in due course we will have a full, total disclosure of what has been the total debt,” he said. He further explained the reason why APNU will not reveal the identities of their donors is because of the fear of “consequences”.

“You don’t ever do that…I think I did disclose that people like to be private and they are aware sometimes that there might be consequences in a small country like this if it is public,” Harmon said.

But Harmon also adopted that position despite the concerns raised by sections of the society that several big businessmen pumped millions of dollars into the then opposition campaign with the understanding that they would get big contracts, kick backs and other gains if it won the elections.

Leading up to the elections, both APNU and AFC pledged to make public the details surrounding the financing for their campaigns. In fact, based on reports, they had promised to make this information public by the first week in August but to date, no substantial information has been released regarding campaign financing.

Meanwhile, Harmon told this newspaper that all the political parties, if they have nothing to hide, should feel committed to “transparency” and reveal their information.

“This is what we have been asking the PPPC to do for 23 years and I hope we can get some answers from them,” he said.

However, PPP/C General Secretary Clement is currently not in Guyana and therefore was unable to respond to any questions relating to campaign financing.

No progression on Legislation

The two parties made these revelations, years after it had tabled a legislation to tighten campaign financing here, the Alliance For Change (AFC) has made no moves to see this initiative completed.

And at a time when there are renewed accusations of that party and its senior partner – A Partnership For National Unity (APNU) – being funded by a shady businessmen– created group ahead of the upcoming elections, Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Dr Steve Surujbally says it would seem that Guyana’s political players have no interest in the issue.

Financial experts have suggested that the major reason why APNU and AFC had opposed the passage of the Anti-Money Laundering/Countering of Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Bill in Parliament, was because their trail of funding from questionable sources.

Since 2009, the Organisation of American States (OAS) has insisted on Guyana to introduce campaign financing laws. These laws are not intended just to capture the quantum of funding to political parties, but also the nature of the source of the funding.

While the AFC and APNU had given lip service to the introduction of such laws – one of which was ironically introduced since 2011 by the AFC – they have studiously avoided making the law operational.

Gail Teixeira of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) had said previously that the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) had downplayed the proposal by the OAS for a model regarding campaign financing for the 2011 elections.

Teixeira had said then that the party said it was not necessary for the elections of that year. It was in that same year APNU announced ahead of the 2011 elections that it had secured some US$6M campaign funds, but failed to disclose from where the money was secured.

The AFC has also been accused previously of being financed from questionable sources. Questions were raised as to how the party was able to secure the services of US-based political consultant Dick Morris for the AFC’s 2006 elections campaign, whose fees would have run into the tens of millions.

 At January this year, when asked about the lapse in them not pushing through the legislation even when the combined opposition held the majority in Parliament, the AFC blamed former Attorney General (AG) Anil Nandlall for them not doing so.

General Secretary David Patterson said then that the party had always been concerned about campaign financing. “The question of campaign financing is something I must admit that we have always wanted to table…we have a draft and things like that but circumstances have overtaken us on that,” Patterson explained.

He did not detail what those circumstances were that led to the AFC missing out on the opportunity to address this foundational issue.