‘We need openness in party funding’

When Parliament met recently, UDF chief whip in the House, Clement Chiwaya, made a presentation in which he pushed for a law that would require political parties to disclose where they source their funding. JACOB JIMU caught up with Chiwaya to delve deeper into the proposal.

During the last sitting of Parliament, you argued that the House should pass a bill that would regulate funding to political parties. What prompted you to make the call?

The recent looting of government resources and the general high rise of corruption beg for reforms to ensure that public funds are not looted to finance ruling parties. The general trend has been that once a political party becomes a ruling party it suddenly becomes wealthy with both movable and immovable assets. The questions that we need to be asking ourselves are: where does this money come from and if the answer is from well-wishers as we have been told to believe, then what are the interests of those making such huge donations?

I believe that the money is basically either looted from the public purse or is given by those with huge interests in government business contracts. Now, in both scenarios it is our people that suffer because money intended for development is channeled to advance the political party agenda.

On the other hand, companies that donate huge sums of money do so to gain undue influence in accessing government business contracts. This disadvantages honest and resource limited companies since they cannot compete on the same footing. In view of the above and to ensure transparency in the way political parties are funded, we need to come up with some form of regulation to curb corruption.

The fight against corruption has to be fought on different fronts. Secrecy in the donation of funds or in their receipt is inappropriate in a truly democratic society and raises suspicions about the motives of donor and recipient. It is an important democratic principle that no particular opinion or interest should receive favourable treatment nor enjoy excessive influence because of its financial contribution. Conversely, no substantial segment of opinion or interest should be denied effective representation because of lack of finance.

Do you find it conceivable that fellow MPs would support such a bill given that it could affect financing to their parties?

The reason MPs are elected is to put the welfare of the people and the nation at heart when discharging their duties. I would be surprised and disappointed if a well-meaning bill like this would not be supported in Parliament. Each and every bill, if given the right and unlimited scrutiny, has the potential to pass in Parliament. Members would probably need to be well informed on why this bill is important for our nation.

You proposed that the bill should require parties to disclose the names of their donors and amounts of money donated. Don’t you think this could dry up funding to opposition parties as donors would be reluctant to be associated with the opposition for fear of losing business with government and other benefits?

You see, this is the more reason we have to have this bill. In a democracy, people and corporations must support and donate funds to political parties based on the policies and ideologies that those political parties advance. Parties, on the other hand, have a duty to come up with innovative ways of fundraising by, among other things, diversifying their donor base rather than rely on huge corporations to fund them. No business from government should be given out based on how much a corporation or an individual has donated to a ruling party.

How should the bill balance the need for parties to receive funding from public and private donors but achieve transparency given the risks highlighted above?

The bill will incorporate the current situation where a political party which has gained a certain percentage of votes in a general election is eligible for state funding and the need for that party to account for that money. Parties will have to produce a list of donors and how much they have given. The party, on the other hand, must provide audited accounts and this information should be public information.

Apart from the disclosure requirement you proposed in Parliament, what other measures should the regulation of political finance in Malawi capture?

I am sure that there are a lot of things that Malawians would like to include in this bill, but I think there are inherent questions that need to be decided on. For example, the following points could be considered:

lReasonable limitations on campaign or political party financing ie capping the amount an individual or company can donate to a party;

lFinance reporting requirements;

lMeasures to prevent misuse of state resources;

lEstablishment of an independent regulatory body to monitor the funding of political parties and electoral campaigns, and

lProviding appropriate sanctions for violations

We can, therefore, decide what we want to include in the bill based on the points that I have mentioned.

Generally, MPs such as yourself have not given the issue of political finance the attention and scrutiny it deserves. Why is this the case considering the risks that unregulated money in politics poses to the country’s democracy?

It would have been difficult to legislate on each and every problem that we have experienced since we opted for democracy. Suffice to say that this is a long journey that we have embarked on. Each and every day presents its own challenges and what we require is political will to confront such challenges. The issue of political funding and its regulation is a national issue; hence, the need for concerted effort from all sectors to help shape our electoral system. My main goal when I introduced the issue in Parliament was to encourage debate on this issue.