Eyes glued on civil society groups and political parties

LIKE THE Gleaner in its July 25, 2013 editorial, (Member of Parliament Pryce is on to something) I "care not about Raymond Pryce's motive but the logic of his proposal" - "And it has merit". The merit is that "democracies can be compromised by the undue influence of lobby groups", and I would add: more so by political parties "acting at the behest of unknown funders".

So let's deal first with one civil society group and then political parties. National Integrity Action (NIA) is a registered not-for-profit company under Jamaica's law; its main 'unknown funders' are United States Agency for International Development and Department for International Development, whose anti-corruption agendas are not 'hidden' and who are transparently disclosed on NIAs website. NIA was officially launched as a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in December 2011 with the then Prime Minister Andrew Holness as the keynote speaker and the then opposition spokesman on finance, Peter Phillips, delivering a message on behalf of the then leader of the opposition. Then and now NIAs' hidden agenda' is proclaimed in the highways and byways to build integrity and fight for a corruption-free Jamaica. The board of NIA appointed NIA auditors at its regular meeting of June 6, 2013 and auditing of NIA's 1st and 2nd year financials is now in process. We have absolutely no objections to making these public on completion.

Now to the parties - while civil society groups like NIA seek to influence power, political parties, through Parliament and the Cabinet, wield real power. Hence, long before today's legitimate concern for transparency in NGOs, democracies - with the exception of Jamaica and CARICOM states - required by law that parties be registered and that previously unknown funders be disclosed - the Canada Elections Expenditures Act was passed in 1970, the US Federal Elections Campaign Act in 1971 (and amended in 1974), the United Kingdom Parties Elections Referendum Act in 2001. Hence, today, for example, any Jamaican, by the click of a mouse, can know who were the major funders of Romney and Obama's campaigns in the 2012 United States presidential campaign. But no Jamaican, not even rank and file party members, much less you and I, have the right to know who are the major donors of the $638 million and the $375.3 million reported by the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and People National's Party (PNP) treasurers respectively as spent by the party centres alone in the December 2011 election (See Gleaner, Tuesday, November 20, 2013). Is there a relation between unknown funders and perennial unjustified tax waivers?

PAYING THE PIPER

On occasion, we get a glimpse of some unknown funders who are 'paying the piper'. In researching my doctoral thesis, I discovered that in the 1950s, Tate and Lyle, then the biggest private landowner in Jamaica was then an unknown funder to both the PNP and the JLP. Was part of their hidden agenda to 'buy influence' to prevent land reform to benefit small farmers? In 2011, six principled corporate donors, for the very first time, stepped from the unknown and in response to NIA and other advocacy, voluntarily disclosed how much they had given to the parties. In the case of R v David Smith, The Supreme Court of Turks and Caicos Islands issued a confiscation order (April 2011) which indicated that David Smith/OLINT - now a convicted money launderer and financial criminal - at a time when Jamaica's Financial Services Commission had issued a cease and desist order on OLINT, was an unknown funder to the tune of US $5M and US $2M to the JLP and PNP, respectively, prior to the 2007 general elections. Should we have to wonder what was Smith's hidden agenda; or that of Dudus' or Trafigura's?

Now there is 'consensus' for the registration of political parties, but by when? Recall, it is more than 10 years since May 2002 when the Senate unanimously approved my motion on this matter. Despite outstanding work by the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ), promises by successive administrations and parliamentary approval of ECJ reports and recommendations on party registration in November 2010 and campaign finance in April 2012, there is still no legislation. In November, 2012, a Don Anderson poll found that a plurality of the Jamaican people wanted our international partners to make anti-corruption measures a condition for assistance. MPs, do the right thing, if belatedly! Let it not be necessary for party registration and campaign finance regulation - a requirement of 81% of democracies across the world - have to become a 'structural benchmark' of some IMF/World Bank agreement!

Professor Trevor Munroe is executive director, National Integrity Action and visiting honorary professor, SALISES, UWI, Mona.