Candidates to submit reports

 WINNING candidates and political parties will be required to provide financial reports to the Registry of Political Parties and Candidates Commission after every national election under the revised Organic Law on the Integrity of Political Parties and Candidates (OLIPPAC). 

Registrar Dr Alphonse Gelu said winning candidates and parties would be required to state how much they spent and received during campaigns.

“So in the revised OLIPPAC we have tightened up that area in campaign finance in terms of disclosure and also trying to ensure to an extent that there is a levelled playing field for all the political parties and the candidates,” he said.

“This will be the first time that we are doing this since 2002. The former registrars haven’t done this but for me I feel that it is very important to show the people of this country where their parties and individual candidates are getting their contributions from.”

Gelu said in PNG campaign finance was done in such a way that it created an uneven playing field where only a few political parties tend to have enough money to participate in the election while the rest have limited or nothing at all.

He said there would be limit to the contributions made by individuals, groups and corporate entities to candidates and political parties. 

The registry must be informed of major fundraisers, how much was raised and who was it for.

“Government departments and State-Owned Enterprises will not be allowed to make contributions to the major fundraisers. Once they do that they’re involving themselves in politics which is not right,” Gelu said. 

“We will make that report public and will be available to all the parties and the winning candidates. One of the things with campaign finance is that it is one of those strong mechanisms that ensure that there is accountability in the manner in which governments of the day makes decisions on issues such as contracts and so forth.”

Gelu said there were provisions in the OLIPPAC that allowed corporate entities and individuals to make contributions to parties and candidates.

The contributors would fill out forms available at the registry which would then be entered into a data base.

“There is nothing mischievous about this because we are not trying to put anybody down. The law is very clear but what we want to show is that these are the people that have been actively participating. 

“However, I have a strong feeling that not many of the political parties and winning candidates have been truthful in their disclosure of how they sourced their funding. At this stage I don’t have evidence but not many of them would want to tell us where they are getting their money from.” 

Despite that, Gelu said it was important that they must comply with the law because if the Registry has some strong evidence to prove that a winning candidate or party has received money from an individual or corporate entity and did not disclose it then they would be slapped with a hefty penalty fine.