Political Financing Legislation in Guyana
On September 10, 2017, Stabroek News published an article containing remarks by Treasurer of the AFC and Minister of Business, Dominic Gaskin; the Minister of State, Joseph Harmon; and the Leader of the Opposition, Bharrat Jagdeo, on the matter of political (campaign) financing legislation. The article was a follow-up on recommendations made by the Carter Center in its report on the 2015 General Elections and it captured the essence of what appears to have effected perpetual postponement of political financing legislation in Guyana; self-preservation on the part of politicians and political parties.
Why Political Financing Laws?
Political financing laws are about protecting the state from corporate and other interests, ensuring that incumbents avoid corrupt use of state resources (including money) and ensuring access to resources for all recognised political parties among other issues. However, it is possible for such laws to address only a subset of these issues. Political financing laws usually provide mechanisms to facilitate transparency and accountability which allow citizens to detect instances of corrupt practices.
Corrupt practices that can become commonplace in the absence of political financing legislation include, entities donation to politicians and political parties in order to
1. gain state favours (eg. contracts, concessions, appointments, diplomatic status etc.),
2. influence the agenda of the state, and access state sanctioned perks etc.
These practices can involve local or foreign entities. For example, firms might obtain unjustifiable concessions on imports or benefit from unlawful or unnecessary single sourcing as reciprocation for donations to parties. Corrupt practices may also include incumbents dipping into the national treasury for campaign purposes and for essentially buying votes and may involve incumbents utilising other state resources (for example, buildings, vehicles etc.) for their campaigns and other partisan purposes (sometimes under the guise of executing official duties).
The development of the country can become deformed when policies are influenced by interests other than that of the citizenry. The voices of the people can become inconsequential since politicians are not really free to make changes in response to their constituents.
Whereas politicians in Guyana have asked for evidence of problems resulting from lack of political financing legislation, the evidence itself is protected by the absence of laws to compel disclosure coupled with noncooperation of politicians and parties with requests for potentially relevant information such as lists of donors and amounts donated. Unless whistleblowers come forward, civil society, the media and other agencies are unlikely to be able to provide the evidence requested.