Ross Sheil, Staff Reporter

With the controversy over Dutch oil company Trafigura Beheer's $31 million contribution to the governing People's National Party (PNP) still ongoing, political parties and the private sector are still divided as to how, if at all, individual transactions should be disclosed to the public or the Electoral Advisory Committee (EAC).

The National Democratic Movement (NDM) wants donations over $10,000 listed and donors named; however, the PNP and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) are in favour of donations being disclosed only as far as the EAC. Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) President Beverley Lopez believes that currently companies would only be happy with the total of all private sector donations being made available to the EAC.

Reduce funding

Government Senator Professor Trevor Munroe, speaking at a Gleaner Editors' Forum yesterday, said that he was personally in favour of donations being made public. But attorney-at-law Tom Tavares-Finson, who represents the JLP on the EAC, feared that such a move would reduce the amount of funding for political parties.

According to Mrs. Lopez, companies in Jamaica tend to give to both parties but do not want their donations to be made public, for fear of reprisal. "Yes, in a real world, that can happen so let us see how we can take this thing in a sort of process one step at a time, disclose to the commission [EAC] a total figure that the private sector has given as funding, I would think that would possibly be accepted by the private sector."

Compliance

Donna Duncan Scott, group executive director of Jamaica Money Market Brokers (JMMB), who was not involved in yesterday's Editors' Forum, is in favour of donations being made public. With her company looking to donate money to political parties for the first time, she said that they would have to comply with the company's principles of corporate governance.

Mrs. Duncan Scott said that in the instance of donating to the PNP, the governing party would first need to clarify the Trafigura situation to the satisfaction of JMMB. "If it were that they got a donation that was tantamount to a bribe to get them to renew the contract with Trafigura, that would not be upholding the values that we stand for," she explained.

However, it is important that the private sector continue to give donations rather than leave a funding gap that may be filled by 'tainted money', she argued.