By Solomon Gumah
Tamale, Aug 29, GNA – Professor Eliasu Mumuni, the Dean, Faculty of Media and Communication Studies, University for Development Studies has urged journalists to intensify reporting on political party financing to promote transparency and accountability in Ghana’s democratic processes.
He said the media had an important role in scrutinising the financing activities of political parties and candidates, particularly by demanding timely, detailed and accessible information on how political campaigns were funded.
Professor Mumuni made the call when he addressed media practitioners at a workshop in Tamale on regulating political party financing in Ghana.
The workshop was organised by the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) with support from the British High Commission.
Professor Mumuni identified enforcement, timeliness, detail and access as major gaps in the accountability system for political party financing and said journalists must use their platforms to draw attention to such gaps and demand greater compliance with existing regulations.
He said political parties were required to provide information on their assets, expenditure and annual accounts, and urged journalists to follow up on such disclosures and make relevant information available to the public in an understandable manner.
He encouraged journalists to pay attention to restrictions on political party donations based on citizenship and examine whether political parties and candidates complied with the applicable rules governing sources of campaign financing.
He called for public access to financial documents filed by political parties, adding that greater accessibility would enable journalists, civil society organisations and citizens to independently scrutinise political financing and promote informed public debate.
Professor Mumuni urged the media to examine access to state-owned media by political parties, particularly during election periods, to ensure fairness and equal opportunities for parties and candidates to communicate their policies to the electorate.
He said journalists often faced challenges in reporting political financing because expenditure by candidates, especially during party primaries was insufficiently covered while the absence of comprehensive expenditure ceilings and donation limits made it difficult to establish the true scale of political spending.
He said late, aggregated or difficult-to-access financial records, weak auditing, limited follow-up and inadequate visibility of sanctions further constrained effective media scrutiny while cash transactions, in-kind contributions, proxy arrangements and digital spending remained difficult to trace making sustained and investigative media reporting critical to strengthening accountability in political party financing.
GNA
Edited by Eric K Amoh/Benjamin Mensah
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