Monrovia, Liberia – The Integrity Watch Liberia has reportedly documented about 1,390 evidences against political parties, and independent candidates for allegedly violating the regulations of the National Elections Commission on political parties’ campaign financing during the October 10th presidential and legislative election in the country.
Harold Aidoo, the Executive Director of Integrity Watch, connected most independent candidates and all political parties to campaign finance crimes under the NEC’s political parties regulations. Mr. Aidoo revealed the information on Friday, October 27, 2023, during a one-day stakeholder conference in Monrovia, which was funded by the UN Development Programme and arranged by Integrity Watch in association with the National Elections Commission to address the violations of NEC political parties’ campaign regulations.
According to Mr. Aidoo, the evidences of the violation of the NEC regulations on political parties’ campaign financing are extremely long as they range from misuse of state properties , vehicles donated by international partners , taking out students of their classes to wait for prominent people and refusal to identify sources of funding.
Remarking during the conference, NEC Commissioner, Attorney Boakai Dukuly, stressed the need for citizens to begin taking legal actions individuals who will deliberately violate campaign financing in the country. He claims that some people knowingly break campaign finance laws without thinking about the repercussions on the Liberian people out of a drive to win; “it is just a symptom on how we violates other laws disregarding the laws created by ourselves. we have to deal with this because we do not know how some of these people get their money and how it is spent during campaign seasons.”
He expressed the expectation that attendees would bring suggestions to reduce the nation’s needless campaign funding. Dr. Lenka Homolkona, Chief Technical Advisor for Elections at the UNDP, for her part, applauded Liberia’s civil society organisations’ efforts to investigate the matter of campaign financing in Liberia.
In her view, this electoral feature is crucial for levelling the playing field for all candidates, irrespective of their social and political standing. The implementations cannot be accomplished without the enforcement of campaign financing rules, according to her, unless individuals work with civil society organisations to establish fair competition. She claimed that the fact that the nation is handling its own problems speaks volumes.
The conference , under the theme: “ Strengthening Political Accountability Project.” brought together participants from the Liberia National Bar Association , the civil society organizations among many others.
Reported by: Augustine Octavius
Contact: +231777463963
Email: augustineoctavius@gmail.com
