By Ibrahim Khalilulahi Usman
Kumasi, Dec. 6, GNA – Ahead of the 2024 General Elections, the Local Governance Network (LOGNet) has begun consolidating views of Ghanaians on political financing and spending of political parties through its Political Finance Reform Project.
According to the organisation, unregulated spending by political parties is getting extremely expensive and needs to be checked to ensure political parties do not receive money from illicit sources.
At a stakeholder engagement in Kumasi, LOGNet engaged various groups to solicit their views on political financing and its solutions.
Participants included representatives of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), youth and women leadership, political parties, traditional authorities, Electoral Commission, and people with disabilities.
Speaking to the Ghana News Agency on the sidelines of the event, Mr. Christopher Dapaah, a consultant for the project, said despite available legal regulations and policies on political campaign financing, the Ghanaian political landscape has been marred by concerns over transparency and accountability in campaign financing and monetization traits with impunity in recent times.
This, according to him, needs to change.
“Political Finance Reforms can lead to better public financial management by ensuring that political contributions are properly accounted for and used for their intended purposes,” he stated.
The project, funded by United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), will run for four months and focus on Political Finance Reforms.
For many years, financing of political parties in Ghana has been a subject of discussion due to a lack of transparency.
Numerous research has also mentioned how costly it is to run for office, either parliamentary or presidential, which leads to corruption because candidates focus on reimbursing their campaign costs instead of working for the people.
GNA