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Political money laundering
published: Wednesday | October 25, 2006 <DIV class=KonaBody>
Peter Espeut
Bank confidentiality is not an absolute. It used to be, but now the law requires banks to report "suspicious transactions" to the Ministry of Finance. Recently, my wife and I bought a car, and since the cost was over US$10,000, I had to bring all the purchase documents, etc., to the bank to prove I wasn't laundering money. It is this PNP government which has eroded bank confidentiality as an absolute value through the introduction of several pieces of legislation.
If political parties are involved in financial hanky-panky then legal provisions need to be there to detect it and prosecute it. If the governing party is involved in the hanky-panky, reporting the transaction to the (friendly) Ministry of Finance will not help. If the will is there, a way can be found to make honest men and women of our politicians.
So far, both parties in Parliament have made sure that no integrity laws, no anti-corruption legislation can ever be effective, because all the declarations are secret. And even with that, several parliamentarians and public officials make no declarations, and none are ever punished.
And now we have heard from an impeccable source that with respect to reporting on campaign spending, many politicians lie. Since that is the case, is it unreasonable to suspect that when parliamentarians make declarations of their income and assets under integrity legislation, that they make false declarations there also? We will never know, because we the public who have some idea of at least some of the income and assets of politicians, will never get a chance to ground-truth their declarations.
Declare all gifts received
Politicians must also be required to declare all gifts received, not just gifts of objects and things, but also gifts of trips and holidays. There is more than one way to buy influence.
The Trafigura scandal has exposed the vulnerability of our political system to bribery and influence-peddling; if there was something corrupt about Trafi-gura's donation to the PNP, the whole transaction might have gone unnoticed. All political donations, no matter how small, must be declared into the public domain. If some figure is named below which no public declaration need be made, then we know what will happen: 1,000 or even more donations below that threshold will be made.
The politicians betray how much in the pocket of their donors they are when they defend the wish of many of their contributors to remain anonymous. Politics is a public affair, and it is unreasonable - and suspicious - for a donor to wish their contribution to remain secret. The public needs to know who donated what, so that when contracts are awarded, linkages can be made.
But the question remains: how can we make sure that the politicians will not lie about the donations they receive? What penalties will be attached to failing to correctly declare them? All the bank accounts of the political parties must be declared, and their transactions must be public knowledge.
It is now being said (by the politicians, of course) that because of the possibility of influence-peddling, political campaigns should be financed with public funds. This prospect is scary! With our porous arrangements, and with our penchant for secrecy and lack of accountability, how will we ensure that there won't be secret contributions into secret accounts in addition to public financing? How are we going to make sure that the brown paper bags filled with undeclared campaign contributions will not continue apace alongside the declared donations and the public
Political money laundering
published: Wednesday | October 25, 2006 <DIV class=KonaBody>
Peter Espeut
Bank confidentiality is not an absolute. It used to be, but now the law requires banks to report "suspicious transactions" to the Ministry of Finance. Recently, my wife and I bought a car, and since the cost was over US$10,000, I had to bring all the purchase documents, etc., to the bank to prove I wasn't laundering money. It is this PNP government which has eroded bank confidentiality as an absolute value through the introduction of several pieces of legislation.
If political parties are involved in financial hanky-panky then legal provisions need to be there to detect it and prosecute it. If the governing party is involved in the hanky-panky, reporting the transaction to the (friendly) Ministry of Finance will not help. If the will is there, a way can be found to make honest men and women of our politicians.
So far, both parties in Parliament have made sure that no integrity laws, no anti-corruption legislation can ever be effective, because all the declarations are secret. And even with that, several parliamentarians and public officials make no declarations, and none are ever punished.
And now we have heard from an impeccable source that with respect to reporting on campaign spending, many politicians lie. Since that is the case, is it unreasonable to suspect that when parliamentarians make declarations of their income and assets under integrity legislation, that they make false declarations there also? We will never know, because we the public who have some idea of at least some of the income and assets of politicians, will never get a chance to ground-truth their declarations.
Declare all gifts received
Politicians must also be required to declare all gifts received, not just gifts of objects and things, but also gifts of trips and holidays. There is more than one way to buy influence.
The Trafigura scandal has exposed the vulnerability of our political system to bribery and influence-peddling; if there was something corrupt about Trafi-gura's donation to the PNP, the whole transaction might have gone unnoticed. All political donations, no matter how small, must be declared into the public domain. If some figure is named below which no public declaration need be made, then we know what will happen: 1,000 or even more donations below that threshold will be made.
The politicians betray how much in the pocket of their donors they are when they defend the wish of many of their contributors to remain anonymous. Politics is a public affair, and it is unreasonable - and suspicious - for a donor to wish their contribution to remain secret. The public needs to know who donated what, so that when contracts are awarded, linkages can be made.
But the question remains: how can we make sure that the politicians will not lie about the donations they receive? What penalties will be attached to failing to correctly declare them? All the bank accounts of the political parties must be declared, and their transactions must be public knowledge.
It is now being said (by the politicians, of course) that because of the possibility of influence-peddling, political campaigns should be financed with public funds. This prospect is scary! With our porous arrangements, and with our penchant for secrecy and lack of accountability, how will we ensure that there won't be secret contributions into secret accounts in addition to public financing? How are we going to make sure that the brown paper bags filled with undeclared campaign contributions will not continue apace alongside the declared donations and the public