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| September 18, 2005 | Sunday | Sha'aban 13, 1426 |
Public funding proposed for political groups
PESHAWAR, Sept 17: Public funding to political parties can check the influence of black money and help control political corruption, the executive director of the Centre for Civic Education (CCE) Pakistan Zafarullah Khan, said here on Saturday.
Mr Khan said that political groups either rely upon their leader’s purse or a highly secretive and centralised system of donations that turn democracy into plutocracy.
“To reform this odd situation and encourage participation of maximum citizens in the political process, the concept of public funds for politics should be introduced, he told reporters at the Peshawar Press Club.
The Centre for Civic Education-Pakistan has worked on different options for public funding, according to Mr Khan. Quoting figures from the 2002 election, Mr Khan said that only 25 million out of the 66.7 million registered voters had cast their ballots in the general elections.
“If we fix an amount of Rs10 per vote, then the total amount of public funding available to political parties will be Rs667 million. But if we opt for a threshold of one percent, then on the basis of the 2002 election results, only six parties namely Pakistan Muslim League, Pakistan People’s Party-Parliamentarians, Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, Pakistan Muslim League-N, Muttahida Qaumi Movement and Pakistan Muslim League-F would qualify for public funding and it will cost the exchequer Rs21.9m annually.”
If public funding is provided to parties with representation in parliament, it will cost the exchequer Rs25.9 million a year, he remarked. Describing politics as a nation building process, he said that by prudently investing millions of rupees of taxpayers’ money on the country’s politics, “we can save the nation trillions that are often abused to recover the electoral costs”.
Mr Khan said that if public funding is given for electoral campaigns to each candidate, with the assumption that a party has fielded candidates for all 272 direct constituencies of the National Assembly with legally allowed limit of expenses of Rs1.5 million per constituency it will become Rs408 million per party at the time of the election.
Similarly, he said, the cost of all 577 direct constituencies in the four provinces on a similar assumption will be Rs577 million per party as the legally allowed limit is one million rupees per constituency. “These costs will be far below the projected figures as no party has ever fielded candidates in every constituency”, he added.
Explaining another option, Mr Khan said that the legal expenditure limits of Rs1.5m for candidates of National Assembly and Rs1 million for provincial can be reduced by offering candidates free mailing facilities and free time on public television/radio.
Reports about coverage of political parties in the public media should be submitted to parliament on a quarterly basis.
Similarly, the parties could be involved in civic education and voter motivation programmes of the Election Commission of Pakistan that spent Rs966 million for this purpose in 2002.
“Provision of matching grants to parties according to their legally raised funds could be yet another option,” he added.
Private contributions should be encouraged by giving tax exemptions and rebates, said Mr. Khan while pinpointing Pakistan Muslim League, Pakistan Muslim League-N and Tehreek-i-Insaaf election manifestos that touched the issue of funding reforms.
Time has come to address this important issue and the proposals articulated by CCE-Pakistan could serve as the first step in checking the filthy use of money in electoral processes.
Mr Khan called for amendments to the Political Parties Ordinance (PPO) to allow corporate donations for politics and tax exemption on donations to political parties.
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