LETTER OF THE DAY - Electoral Commission has produced a mouse

The Editor, Sir:

The mountain has laboured and produced a mouse. After four years of deliberations, preceded and accompanied by submissions from local organisations, comparative studies with what transpires in jurisdictions as far away as Germany and as influential as the United States, the Electoral Commission of Jamaica - committed to finding consensus among its members - has completed its report to Parliament on political party financing.

A cursory review of this report immediately makes plain its inadequate and very limited nature.

This commission, constituted mainly by representatives and nominees from the two major political parties which have alternated as our government since Independence in 1962, has produced its report on what it refers to as the first of a two-stage approach. The main thrust of this staged report is the provision of state funding for political parties, which would now be required to be registered.

Good governance

At the end of its report, it proposes that there be disclosure of receipts and expenditure of political parties to a Political Financing Disclosures Committee. So we the citizens are bearing the burden of state funding from the tax pool but do not have the benefit of or entitlement to information regarding other sources of funding and how our money is spent. We, therefore, are denied the right to make our own assessment regarding which bodies or persons make tainted contributions, or are in a position of favour, or have bought their way into being able to disproportionately influence governmental decision making. This is not in keeping with good governance or transparency to which both political parties have declared their allegiance.

The second stage will, it is promised, deal with campaign financing. Apparently, the representatives on the commission have not been able to achieve consensus on this issue. This, as well as the limited nature of the current recommendations, is not surprising. It is not easy to make decisions fairly and dispassionately when self-interest is involved. That is why it is important for us as citizens of Jamaica, who have had to live through lack of accountability, corruption and inefficiencies at the highest levels, and who have had to suffer the negative consequences of uncontrolled crime, must let our voices be heard.

We demand of ourselves and those who lead us a law that is comprehensive and addresses all the inadequacies which we all agree have led to an inferior quality of life for the majority of us led by supposedly superior minds.

We today live with the consequences of those inadequacies. How much longer?!

I am, etc.,

JACQUELINE SAMUELS-BROWN

Kingston