Asaba – A head of the 2019 general elections, officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) have disagreed over whether to sanction political parties and candidates that violate campaign rules on campaign financing.

While Dr. Mohammed Leki, INEC National Commissioner, South South, noted that the Electoral Act of 2010 empowers the commission to monitor political parties, including their finances, sources of finance, how the finances are used, ethical issues, and the way the finances are expended, Mrs Rose Oriaran-Anthony, Administrative Secretary, INEC, Delta State, said in her welcome address that money was necessary in politics, adding that there is no democracy where political campaigns can take place without the use of money.

The controversy took place during a capacity building for election and party monitoring (EPM) officers in the South South geo-political zone on tracking and monitoring of political parties’ campaign finances.

The training was aimed at enabling participants to understand the concept of political campaign financing and the legal framework of campaign financing.

Similarly, the workshop was also meant to build the capacity of EPM Staff on campaign finance tracking and reporting for the 2019 general elections as well as develop and adopt a uniform format for collating finance tracking report.



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According to Leki, INEC has put modalities in place to sanction political parties and candidates that may violate electoral rules on campaign financing.

He said the modest attempts were made in the 2015 general elections in this regard but were yet to achieve the desired success in monitoring political parties so as to sanction violators, adding that most political parties were not transparent on their campaign finances.

While emphasizing the need to monitor political parties’ finances due to potential abuses and grave havoc on outcome of electoral process, he noted that that the challenges involved in carrying out such responsibilities were a global phenomenon.

Leki assured that there are always issues with campaign finances but assured that the government and civil society organizations (CSOs) were very much on top of it, to ensure that they understand sources of political parties’ finances.

http://www.mcebisco.com.ng/2018/04/inec-commissioner-secretary-disagree.html