Sources to be ‘scrutinised’

SOURCES of funding from donors to political parties will be scrutinised by the Supervisor of Elections once the Political Parties (Registration, Conduct, Funding and Disclosure) (Amendment) 2020 is implemented.

This, according to Parliamentary Standing Committee on Justice, Law and Human Rights chairman, Alvick Maharaj, during public submissions on the proposed Bill in Sabeto, Nadi.

“As we all are aware, every individual donor is allowed to donate a maximum of $10,000 and we make sure that it is not coming through a company or business because we discourage companies to be involved in the political arena itself,” he said.

“One of the important amendments that will come in through this Bill is the source of the money that is being donated by the individual.

“This Bill gives the powers to the Supervisor of Elections to question the source of where this funding came from.

“For example, somebody may actually be involved in dealing hard drugs and they actually reach out to donate money to a particular party then appropriate actions will be undertaken in that situation.

“So we also need to know where those funds are coming from because most of the political parties, they actually pay millions of dollars running campaigns during an election period and there is a huge amount of money that is circulating during this period.

“It is very important that we know who is donating and where political parties are getting their money from to run their campaigns.”