[ 2016-04-23 ]

Legislator advocates law to guide election year spending by incumbent parties
New Patriotic Party (NPP) parliamentarian for
Atiwa East, Abena Osei-Asare, is advocating for
laws to guide spending by incumbent political
parties in election year.

She says without such a law, abuse of incumbency,
which has been identified as both a cause and an
offshoot of political polarisation in the country,
would flourish.

Founder of the Progressive People's Party (PPP),
Papa Kwesi Nduom, first made the call for such a
law at a forum in Accra, insisting the current
Republic is replete with instanes of incumbency
abuse in an election year.

The charge of of incumbency abuse has already
been levelled against the governing National
Democratic Congress (NDC) over President John
Mahama’s ongoing “Accouting to the People
Tour”.

The NDC has justified the tour, insisting the
tour of all ten regions in the country by the
president is aimed at getting people to appreciate
the development projects the government has
brought about during his four-year rule.

Critics, particularly from the opposition NPP,
say the Accounting to the People Tour is a
campaign tour for re-election funded by state
resources ahead of elections in November this
year.

However, on Newsfile current affairs programme,
Abena Osei-Asare says the time has come for a law
to end the accusations and counter-accusations by
the two main political parties on the issue.

“I think it is high time we come up with
legislation, a law to help us in this regard.

Because it looks like in 2008 it happened,
according to the Institute of Economic Affairs
(IEA), and then in 2010 the Ghana Integrity
Initiative (GII) has stated [that it happened].

“I think we should come up with legislations
that would guide some of these conducts so that at
every election year we don’t have these
problems,” she stressed.

She however wants the current government to lead
such a campaign to streamline and check excess
spending by incumbent political parties.

“In order jurisdictions if [an incumbent party]
incurs cost to a certain level using state
officials, [they] pay a certain amount,” she
said.


A law lecturer at GIMPA, Clara Beeri Kasser-Tee,
agrees with the need for such a law, and has also
suggested that there should be severe punishment
for governments that may abuse such a law.

“For me the problem is that we have no agreed
definition of what constitutes abuse of
incumbency, we have none. So we have to address
the problem, until we address the problem every
government in power would decide for themselves
what constitutes abuse of power,” said Clara.

Clara Beeri Kasser-Tee, who is also Managing
Partner at Kasser Law Firm says a good starting
point for the enactment of such a law would be for
political parties, Civil Society Organisation
(CSO) and other interest groups to come together
to set pararmeters for what constitutes incumbency
abuse.

Source - Myjoyonline.com

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