Anyone who invests so much to campaign will recoup it rightly or wrongly after winning power — Domelevo

Former Auditor-General, Daniel Yao Domelevo has stressed the need for Ghana to enforce its rules on transparency and accountability for party funding.

Speaking to TV3 in an interview on Wednesday, March 22, he made the argument that if this is not done, anyone who invests so much to campaign will look for means that may be right or wrong to recoup what they spent to get power.

Daniel Yao Domelevo proposes that there must be a limit on how much anyone can spend on party financing in the country.

“I think that anyone who invests so much money into coming into office may like to recoup it rightly or wrongly.

“If especially the person borrowed the money, then it must be refunded to wherever it was borrowed but then what we need to know or to do is to first put a limit on how much one can spend on party funding,” the Former Auditor-General stressed.

Daniel Yao Domelevo continued, “The laws that are on the ground as to transparency and accountability for party funding have not been respected or obeyed over the years.

“So, we may have to ensure we have the right legal framework before we put our public resources there, otherwise we are going to open up a waste pipe.”

The thoughts of the former Auditor-General follows the launch of ex-President John Dramani Mahama’s campaign fundraising platform to illustrate how politicians generally and political parties can broaden and make more transparent, their sources of financing.

Speaking at the launch, the former President called on Ghanaians both at home and abroad to support him financially.

“Ladies and gentlemen, on the back of these achievements, we are launching this digitalized retail donation campaign tonight to mobilize small contributions from Ghanaians, both locally and in the diaspora,” John Dramani Mahama said.

He added “the platform is transparent and has a dashboard screen that will show all inflows in real-time. The dashboard is in turn linked to a collection bank account so that proceeds from all the channels can be received directly and used for the intended purpose.”