By Vernon Daley, Staff Reporter
Munroe and Patterson
A TASK force to look at the possibility of state funding of political parties is to be set up in the coming months.
The proposal for the task force has found favour with the P.J. Patterson-led Government, which has indicated a willingness to open discussions on the issue.
"The Government has committed itself to looking at it so I expect it will happen some time within the next calendar year," Senator Burchell Whiteman, the Information Minister, said on Friday.
State funding for political parties was put on the table in July when Senator Professor Trevor Munroe took a resolution to the Senate calling for the setting up of a national commission to examine and make recommendations on the issue.
The resolution, passed by the Senate, highlighted the threat to the island's democracy posed by big business interests, which seek to influence politicians through donations.
Senator Whiteman said the issue was more crucial than ever, given the huge amounts of money spent during the last election campaign and the "need now for the declaration of sources."
An important issue in moving the discussions forward involved working through the formula of having parties account for the money that is donated to them, the Information Minister said.
During the recent election, the governing People's National Party (PNP) projected that it would have spent about $250 million on its campaign, while the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) estimated that it would have spent about half that amount.
Both parties say the bulk of their funding comes from corporate donors, and that the money is channelled into the central party organisation. But it is at the constituency level, where candidates have to fend for themselves, substantially, that there are the greatest concerns that big money might be holding politicians hostage.
Speaking at The Gleaner's Editors' Forum at the newspaper's North Street offices, central Kingston, earlier this year, Prime Minister Patterson indicated that his Government would aim to have the issue of state funding properly aired and resolved.
He cautioned, however, that state funding for political parties would be a hard sell to the Jamaican people, especially in a context where there were several competing areas such as health and education that were in need of funding.
"But, I think, also, one has to take into account the risks that are inherent in the preservation and enhancement of the democratic process when one is as dependent, as political parties now are, on seeking funding entirely from private sources," the Prime Minister said.
