Funding: Parties may protest at NASS
By Chuks Ehirim,
Senior
Correspondent, Abuja
A greater majority
of the 30 registered political parties in the country may stage a protest march
to the National Assembly following the refusal of the lawmakers to approve the
request of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for funding of
the parities.
This was one of the
issues that dominated the one-day meeting, which the INEC Chairman, Dr. Abel
Guobadia, held on Tuesday with leaders of the parties in Abuja.
During the closed
door meeting, the first since last March, which took place at the INEC
headquarters, Guobadia told the party leaders that his commission requested for
N600 million as grants to the parties.
He said INEC
followed up the request at the hearings during budget defence but when the 2004
budget was finally approved, the request was not approved. He also told the
party leaders that the commission itself suffered a similar fate in serious
budget reduction in the 2003 Appropriation Act.
“We proposed
over N800 million for overhead charges but only a paltry sum of N7 million was
provided in the budget,” said Guobadia.
He added,
“This under-provision has seriously limited the ability of the commission
to perform its vital tasks and to meet its inescapable obligations.”
Many of the party
leaders were said to have spoken angrily against the refusal by the National
Assembly to approve the commission’s request for party funding, which
according to them, is a statutory requirement. According to sources inside the
meeting, the party leaders suggested to the commission to represent the demand
for the lawmakers’ consideration but Guobadia was said to have turned
down the advice.
Some of the party
leaders who spoke to Daily Independent after the meeting expressed displeasure
with how the National Assembly handled the issue of their funding.
Chief Charles
Agadaenyi Nwodo, national chairman of Progressive Action Congress (PAC), said
the policy was a deliberate one to frustrate the parties. “Their aim is
to frustrate the parties out of the polity, but we shall not allow them to
succeed,” he said.
A representative of
the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), who was at the meeting said the
party leaders made it clear to the INEC chairman that they were finding it difficult
to pay rentage for their office accommodations.
“Many of the
parties were of the opinions that the best option now is to lead a protest
march to the National Assembly where they can make the world know the attempts
by those in government to kill the parties,” said the APGA man.
Guobadia used the
opportunity of the meeting to remind the party leaders of the need for their
parties to cooperate with external auditors sent to audit their accounts. He
said both the commission and the auditors find it difficult locating offices of
same of the parties.
He added that a few
of the auditors had alleged that some of the political parties did not extend
the necessary cooperation required of them to facilitate the auditing of their
account books and records.
