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  • 10 months ago
Civil Society and the business community are among the many groups being called to action, to propel the authorities into getting the legislation on campaign financing debated and passed in the Parliament.


For this purpose, a campaign has been launched by the People's Roundtable.


Alicia Boucher has the details.
Transcript
00:00Money has already started being expended by political parties ahead of the 2025
00:05general election and head of the People's Roundtable David Abdullah says
00:08there is nothing by way of legislation which forces those parties to account in
00:13that regard. Abdullah refers to the representation of the People's
00:17Amendment Bill 2020 which has been before the Parliament since that year
00:21further pointing to an extensive process which took place in the drafting of the
00:26bill. Abdullah states that the legislation has been before a joint
00:29select committee for years and the People's Roundtable now plans to embark
00:33on a campaign to address the issue. It's not a mass public campaign so we're not
00:38looking for thousands of signatories. We are on a campaign to have civil society
00:43organizations, business organizations, trade unions, women's organizations,
00:47community-based organizations, professional organizations, civil society
00:53generally to support our campaign calling on the Parliament to have the
01:02bill come out of joint select committee and onto the floor of Parliament to be
01:09debated and passed. The People's Roundtable notes that if that is done
01:13these political parties will among other things have to provide audited financial
01:18statements and all campaign contributions above certain amounts will
01:22have to be made public. It would provide for state funding up to a certain amount
01:28for all political parties that have gotten a certain number of votes in
01:32previous elections. The regulating body is to be the Elections and Boundaries
01:36Commission. Very far-reaching legislation and our campaign will be on this issue
01:41and so we are launching this campaign today and to properly engage so that
01:48civil society is aware and the public is aware of the existence of this
01:52bill because most people don't know it exists and doesn't know that it's before
01:55joint select committee and the reports of the joint select committee are very
01:59difficult to locate on the Parliament website. I tried and can't locate them or
02:02can't download them. It's very very problematic. So we call you on the
02:06Parliament to make sure that the committee reports that were saved and
02:10therefore are public are available easily on the Parliament website. On another note
02:16Abdullah says coming out from the civil society crime summit last year several
02:20recommendations that were made and submitted to various ministries and
02:24government stakeholders were largely ignored. This included more manpower, more
02:30vehicles and making the Financial Intelligence Unit an independently
02:35constituted body. And therefore it was no surprise in some respects that the
02:40government then resulted on the 30th of December last year to introduce or
02:45proclaim a state of public emergency with the aim of giving the police and
02:52the Defence Force more power to go after those engaged in violent crime, the gangs and so on.
03:01Abdullah says the effectiveness of the state of emergency will only be
03:05evident when it is concluded based on whether people are charged and brought
03:10before the courts. The People's Roundtable comprises about 13 civil
03:14society organisations.
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