Source: The National, Thursday August 29th, 2013

 By MALUM NALU

POLITICAL parties can only receive a minimum of K500,000 donations from individuals or
business houses for their election campaign, according to Registrar of Political Parties Dr Alphonse Gelu.
He said this yesterday when announcing that 23 MPs would be
referred to the Ombudsman Commission next Monday over unanswered questions about election funding during the 2012 general elections.
“It’s all about them (politicians) informing us about their source, or where they are getting their money from,” Gelu said at a press conference.
“This is the most important thing.
“In politics, obviously, there’ll be people who are donating money to candidates or contributing.
“The Ombudsman Commission is very clear: the limit is K500, 000.
“You can’t go above K500,000.
“We have heard rumours about some of these people (candidates) getting millions.
“That’s totally outside of the law.
“We haven’t received any concrete evidence.
“Under the Organic Law, business houses or individuals that contribute to a party or an individual candidate also need to fill in forms.
“What we try to create is a level playing field for all of those that go in there to compete for their seat in parliament.
“But if you look at the way in which money has come in to influence, it’s totally uneven.
“There are parties that have more money than others, people flying choppers everywhere, going everywhere in the country.
“What we want is for those who hired choppers to tell us where they got the money from.
“This is basically the information that we need.
‘It’s very simple.
“There’s nothing difficult about it.
“You don’t need an accountant to tell you how to fill that form.
“You can fill in the form yourself as a candidate.”