Tweet
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
<SPAN class=Subheadline>Big support for campaign financing</SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>STONE POLL
Thursday, November 09, 2006
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=367 align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description></SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>The idea of public funding for political campaigns has the support of the majority of voters questioned by the Stone Polling Organisation in its October survey.<P class=StoryText align=justify>According to the poll, 41.5 per cent of respondents said they would support laws to allow political campaigns being paid for by public money placed in a common fund set aside for use by both major political parties.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The fund would be set up to prevent politicians from depending on wealthy private donors.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The poll, which has a margin of error of plus or minus three per cent, was conducted October 21-25 using a representative sample of 1,473 voters.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Of the persons polled, 554, or 37.6 per cent, said they were opposed to public funding of political campaigns, while 308 (20.9 per cent) said they did not know or had no answer.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The issue of public funding of political parties regained national prominence last month after the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) revealed that the ruling People's National Party (PNP) had received $31 million from Trafigura Beheer, a Dutch oil trader that has a contract with the Jamaican Government to lift and sell Nigerian crude on the world market.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The money, described as an inappropriate donation by the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce, was transferred to the PNP in September, just before the party's 68th annual conference and just about the time that Trafigura's contract would have been automatically renewed by the Government.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The PNP and the Government have insisted, however, that their dealings with the oil trader were not illegal, and the PNP had said that the money was a campaign donation.
But Trafigura later claimed that the money was payment on a commercial arrangement.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Although Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller has ordered the money returned, the controversy has triggered vigorous debate about the need for legislation to prevent political parties from taking donations from private individuals and firms.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Government senator Anthony Hylton, in particular, has argued that the continued absence of a law will leave the door open for corruption.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"Trafigura was a clear and present danger. It was an accident waiting to happen, because we have no law, no regulations to deal with it," Hylton said in the Senate last month.<P class=StoryText align=justify>He added that if the country failed to seize the opportunity to act on the issue, then no one involved in the political process could feel safe and secure in the knowledge that it was not occurring elsewhere.
<SPAN class=Subheadline>Big support for campaign financing</SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>STONE POLL
Thursday, November 09, 2006
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=367 align=center border=0><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description></SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>The idea of public funding for political campaigns has the support of the majority of voters questioned by the Stone Polling Organisation in its October survey.<P class=StoryText align=justify>According to the poll, 41.5 per cent of respondents said they would support laws to allow political campaigns being paid for by public money placed in a common fund set aside for use by both major political parties.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The fund would be set up to prevent politicians from depending on wealthy private donors.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The poll, which has a margin of error of plus or minus three per cent, was conducted October 21-25 using a representative sample of 1,473 voters.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Of the persons polled, 554, or 37.6 per cent, said they were opposed to public funding of political campaigns, while 308 (20.9 per cent) said they did not know or had no answer.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The issue of public funding of political parties regained national prominence last month after the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) revealed that the ruling People's National Party (PNP) had received $31 million from Trafigura Beheer, a Dutch oil trader that has a contract with the Jamaican Government to lift and sell Nigerian crude on the world market.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The money, described as an inappropriate donation by the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce, was transferred to the PNP in September, just before the party's 68th annual conference and just about the time that Trafigura's contract would have been automatically renewed by the Government.<P class=StoryText align=justify>The PNP and the Government have insisted, however, that their dealings with the oil trader were not illegal, and the PNP had said that the money was a campaign donation.
But Trafigura later claimed that the money was payment on a commercial arrangement.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Although Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller has ordered the money returned, the controversy has triggered vigorous debate about the need for legislation to prevent political parties from taking donations from private individuals and firms.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Government senator Anthony Hylton, in particular, has argued that the continued absence of a law will leave the door open for corruption.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"Trafigura was a clear and present danger. It was an accident waiting to happen, because we have no law, no regulations to deal with it," Hylton said in the Senate last month.<P class=StoryText align=justify>He added that if the country failed to seize the opportunity to act on the issue, then no one involved in the political process could feel safe and secure in the knowledge that it was not occurring elsewhere.
Comment