March 19, 2008
Page 31
THE West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has introduced two new rules to guide the conduct of examinations.
The rules, which would take effect from next year, would be applied to both Basic Education Certificate Examination, May/June West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) and the November/December WASSCE.
The Deputy Registrar and Head of the International Examination Department of WAEC, Mr Charles Eguridu, announced this at the 2008 WAEC Day Students Symposium in Accra on Monday.
It was on the theme: “Improving Educational Assessment Processes Through Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Current Trends in Examination Malpractices”.
Mr Eguridu said where a candidate, contrary to guidelines, failed to write his or her name on an answer booklet before the commencement of an examination, the candidate’s subject result shall be withheld pending cancellation by the appointment committee to the council.
Secondly, he said, where the candidate shaded with ink instead of pencil, the candidate’s subject result shall be withheld pending cancellation by the appointment committee to the council.
The Head of the Security Printing Department of WAEC, Rev Nii Nnai Ollenu, reminded students to abide by examination rules to avoid being sanctioned.
He mentioned some cases of malpractices as taking foreign materials to examination hall, collusion and insulting invigilators, and attributed the problem to inadequate preparation, negative peer influence, and the quest to uphold the status of schools.
He said once a student was caught, the implications included the cancellation of results, inconvenience of rewriting the examination, as well as the financial implication of re-registering for the examination.
An Assistant Registrar, Mr Ben Owusu Ofori, said the world had been taken over by ICT, which the council had adopted for test administration.
According to him, the manual processing of registration, which took a lot of man hours, had given way to on-line registration, saying that “today, registration has come to the doorsteps of candidates”.
He also mentioned the checking of results on the Internet, among other things, and urged students to make maximum use of ICT facilities, and not abuse them or use them for fraudulent activities.
In a presentation, Mr John Avande of the Computer Services Division, said for instance, the use of ICT had contributed greatly to the selection of quality objective questions which was done through the use of item analysis report to select questions.
“With the growing numbers of candidates, the use of Information Technology helps to process the large volumes of data faster. The latest method of educational assessment is being used by TOEFL. This method has gone a very long way to eliminate the canker of leakages and malpractices in examinations,” he said.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Disbursement under LEAP starts today
March 19, 2008
Page 48
ABOUT 8,350 individuals from 1,654 households will between today and tomorrow receive their grants under the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme.
Each beneficiary would be given GH¢16 for a two-month period while the next payment will be made in May.
The National Co-ordinator of LEAP, Mr Lawrence Ofori-Addo, made this known to the Daily Graphic yesterday.
Beneficiaries in Bawku will, however, not receive the grants as a result of the conflict in the area.
Mr Ofori-Addo said the grants would be disbursed to beneficiaries in Bawku once there was normalcy.
He said the LEAP Secretariat had completed the data verification of the beneficiaries and that the beneficiaries had also been issued with identification cards, adding that the payment would be done through Ghana Post and the district offices of the Department of Social Welfare.
LEAP is part of the National Social Protection Strategy (NSPS), a social grant which seeks to provide funds on conditional basis to extremely poor households with vulnerable orphans. The core feature of the programme is direct cash transfer to categories of poor people.
Mr Ofori-Addo said three other areas — Lawra, Ga West and the Tema Municipality, where errors were identified on the data of some beneficiaries — will have to wait until they were corrected, stating that “as soon as they are corrected they will be added to the list”.
“Our officials are currently contacting the beneficiaries and arranging the payment points. We don’t expect long queues, since everything would be smooth,” he said
Mr Ofori-Addo indicated that the five-year programme, which was at the pre-pilot stage, was expected to cover 164,370 households under the period.
Ninety-two households will benefit in Dangbe West, 43 in the Tema Municipal area, 45 in Ga West, 73 in the Cape Coast Municipal area, 74 in the Agona District, 84 in the Assin North District, 99 in Nzema East, 94 in Asuogyaman District and 86 in the Manya Krobo District.
The rest are 93 households in Yilo Krobo District, 115 in New Juabeng, 74 in Fanteakwa, 98 in Kwahu West, 97 in Akuapem South, 89 in Ketu South, 70 in Kumasi Metro, 98 in Obuasi, 104 in the Techiman Municipality, 93 in the Bole District and 31 in the Lawra District.
The Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS 5) which was conducted in 2005 and 2006 indicated that 41 per cent of Ghanaians were poor and out of that figure, 18.2 per cent were considered extremely poor.
Page 48
ABOUT 8,350 individuals from 1,654 households will between today and tomorrow receive their grants under the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme.
Each beneficiary would be given GH¢16 for a two-month period while the next payment will be made in May.
The National Co-ordinator of LEAP, Mr Lawrence Ofori-Addo, made this known to the Daily Graphic yesterday.
Beneficiaries in Bawku will, however, not receive the grants as a result of the conflict in the area.
Mr Ofori-Addo said the grants would be disbursed to beneficiaries in Bawku once there was normalcy.
He said the LEAP Secretariat had completed the data verification of the beneficiaries and that the beneficiaries had also been issued with identification cards, adding that the payment would be done through Ghana Post and the district offices of the Department of Social Welfare.
LEAP is part of the National Social Protection Strategy (NSPS), a social grant which seeks to provide funds on conditional basis to extremely poor households with vulnerable orphans. The core feature of the programme is direct cash transfer to categories of poor people.
Mr Ofori-Addo said three other areas — Lawra, Ga West and the Tema Municipality, where errors were identified on the data of some beneficiaries — will have to wait until they were corrected, stating that “as soon as they are corrected they will be added to the list”.
“Our officials are currently contacting the beneficiaries and arranging the payment points. We don’t expect long queues, since everything would be smooth,” he said
Mr Ofori-Addo indicated that the five-year programme, which was at the pre-pilot stage, was expected to cover 164,370 households under the period.
Ninety-two households will benefit in Dangbe West, 43 in the Tema Municipal area, 45 in Ga West, 73 in the Cape Coast Municipal area, 74 in the Agona District, 84 in the Assin North District, 99 in Nzema East, 94 in Asuogyaman District and 86 in the Manya Krobo District.
The rest are 93 households in Yilo Krobo District, 115 in New Juabeng, 74 in Fanteakwa, 98 in Kwahu West, 97 in Akuapem South, 89 in Ketu South, 70 in Kumasi Metro, 98 in Obuasi, 104 in the Techiman Municipality, 93 in the Bole District and 31 in the Lawra District.
The Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS 5) which was conducted in 2005 and 2006 indicated that 41 per cent of Ghanaians were poor and out of that figure, 18.2 per cent were considered extremely poor.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
GES pleads with Northern CHASS
Page 3
March 8, 2008
THE Ghana Education Service (GES) has appealed to heads of second-cycle schools in the three northern regions to exercise restraint as the service takes steps to get the Scholarship Secretariat to release the feeding grant for second-cycle schools as early as possible.
According to the acting Head of the Public Relations Unit of the GES, Mr Paul Kofi Krampa, “It is the Scholarship Secretariat that is in charge, not the GES.”
“The feeding grants come from the Scholarship Secretariat. The secretariat also receives the money from the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund),” he said, adding that the service could only appeal for the release of the money to ensure smooth academic activities in the schools.
He also appealed to food suppliers to the schools to exercise restraint and co-operate with the heads as they tried to secure funds to settle their outstanding debts.
Mr Krampa said the suppliers should continue to assist the schools, since they had worked together over the years, saying that that was the time to be close to the heads.
The heads of second-cycle schools in the three northern regions had said in a statement that they would be compelled to send home first and second-year students by Thursday, March 13, 2008 if full grants of the first and second terms were not released.
They explained that since the beginning of the academic year in September last year, only 40 per cent of the feeding grant for second and final-year students had been released, while nothing had been received for first-year students for the same term.
“The second term started in January 2008 and as of now we are in the eighth week, yet no funds have been released for the feeding of students in all forms,” they further stated.
The heads alleged that even though they had written letters to the sector ministry, the Ghana Education Service and the three regional ministers in the north on their plight, they were yet to receive the needed responses on the release of the grants.
March 8, 2008
THE Ghana Education Service (GES) has appealed to heads of second-cycle schools in the three northern regions to exercise restraint as the service takes steps to get the Scholarship Secretariat to release the feeding grant for second-cycle schools as early as possible.
According to the acting Head of the Public Relations Unit of the GES, Mr Paul Kofi Krampa, “It is the Scholarship Secretariat that is in charge, not the GES.”
“The feeding grants come from the Scholarship Secretariat. The secretariat also receives the money from the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund),” he said, adding that the service could only appeal for the release of the money to ensure smooth academic activities in the schools.
He also appealed to food suppliers to the schools to exercise restraint and co-operate with the heads as they tried to secure funds to settle their outstanding debts.
Mr Krampa said the suppliers should continue to assist the schools, since they had worked together over the years, saying that that was the time to be close to the heads.
The heads of second-cycle schools in the three northern regions had said in a statement that they would be compelled to send home first and second-year students by Thursday, March 13, 2008 if full grants of the first and second terms were not released.
They explained that since the beginning of the academic year in September last year, only 40 per cent of the feeding grant for second and final-year students had been released, while nothing had been received for first-year students for the same term.
“The second term started in January 2008 and as of now we are in the eighth week, yet no funds have been released for the feeding of students in all forms,” they further stated.
The heads alleged that even though they had written letters to the sector ministry, the Ghana Education Service and the three regional ministers in the north on their plight, they were yet to receive the needed responses on the release of the grants.
WASSCE Nov/Dec candidates doubt grades
Page 11
March 7, 2008
SOME candidates who wrote the November/December West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) last year were given grades in subjects they did not register for. Consequently, they have expressed doubts in the entire grades given to them.
The results slips of the candidates made available to the Daily Graphic had grades of subjects they did not register for.
For instance, one of them who wrote the examination in Accra had his examination centre as Wa. Aside that, he was given grades in Typewriting, Fante and French but he did not register for those subjects.
He said when he took the matter to the West African Examinations Council WAEC), one of the officers cancelled the Typewriting, Fante and French subjects and substituted them with Social Studies, Integrated Science and Physics which were the subjects he registered for.
According to him, he was asked to re-check the Internet for the corrected results. “I went back to check if what was written by the official (Social Studies, Integrated Science and Physics) were effected on the internet, a situation which raised doubts over the results.?????
A parent, whose daughter was affected, said from the mistakes made by WAEC, she did not believe that the grades given to her child were the true reflection of her performance.
She, therefore, called for a re-marking of the papers of those who were affected, adding that WAEC should also apologise for the embarrassment it had caused.
When contacted, the acting Public Relations Officer of WAEC, Mr Frederick Selby, said wrong codes were inadvertently used for the placing of the results on the Internet on Sunday, the day the results were released.
“Immediately our attention was drawn to it, early Monday morning we blocked the net and the corrections were made,” he explained, adding that those who went to the net before “our attention was drawn to the problem had the wrong subjects”.
He noted that after the corrections were made, the net was opened for candidates to access their results.
Mr Selby said the results were credible and nobody had any cause to doubt them, saying that they were the true reflection of the performance of candidates.
“The results are very credible,” he assured candidates.
March 7, 2008
SOME candidates who wrote the November/December West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) last year were given grades in subjects they did not register for. Consequently, they have expressed doubts in the entire grades given to them.
The results slips of the candidates made available to the Daily Graphic had grades of subjects they did not register for.
For instance, one of them who wrote the examination in Accra had his examination centre as Wa. Aside that, he was given grades in Typewriting, Fante and French but he did not register for those subjects.
He said when he took the matter to the West African Examinations Council WAEC), one of the officers cancelled the Typewriting, Fante and French subjects and substituted them with Social Studies, Integrated Science and Physics which were the subjects he registered for.
According to him, he was asked to re-check the Internet for the corrected results. “I went back to check if what was written by the official (Social Studies, Integrated Science and Physics) were effected on the internet, a situation which raised doubts over the results.?????
A parent, whose daughter was affected, said from the mistakes made by WAEC, she did not believe that the grades given to her child were the true reflection of her performance.
She, therefore, called for a re-marking of the papers of those who were affected, adding that WAEC should also apologise for the embarrassment it had caused.
When contacted, the acting Public Relations Officer of WAEC, Mr Frederick Selby, said wrong codes were inadvertently used for the placing of the results on the Internet on Sunday, the day the results were released.
“Immediately our attention was drawn to it, early Monday morning we blocked the net and the corrections were made,” he explained, adding that those who went to the net before “our attention was drawn to the problem had the wrong subjects”.
He noted that after the corrections were made, the net was opened for candidates to access their results.
Mr Selby said the results were credible and nobody had any cause to doubt them, saying that they were the true reflection of the performance of candidates.
“The results are very credible,” he assured candidates.
Minister orders release of funds for northern schools
Page 48
March 11, 2008
THE Minister of Education, Science and Sports, Prof. Dominic Fobih, has directed the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) to immediately secure funds from other sources for release to the Scholarship Secretariat for schools in the three northern regions.
That, he said, was to ensure smooth academic activities on the various campuses until Parliament gave approval to the GETFund budget for the year after which the funds secured would be refunded.
Prof. Fobih, who made this known in an interview, said Parliament was expected to discuss the matter either today or tomorrow, after which approval would be given.
Heads of second-cycle schools in the three northern regions have said they would be compelled to send home first and second-year students by Thursday, March 13, 2008 if full grants of the first and second terms were not released.
They explained that since the beginning of the academic year in September, last year, only 40 per cent of the feeding grant for second and final-year students had been released, while nothing had been received for first-year students for the same term.
However, Prof. Fobih was quick to add that the moneys were not feeding grants, since it would have affected other senior high schools in the country, adding that “this is a special scholarship to students of northern extraction”.
He explained that the money was part of the GETFund’s allocation to the Scholarship Secretariat, which disbursed it to schools of the beneficiaries.
Following the threat of sending students home until the funds were released, the Ghana Education Service (GES) has appealed to the heads to exercise restraint as steps were being taken to get the grants released.
The heads of schools in the northern regions had alleged that even though they had written letters to the sector ministry, the GES and the three regional ministers in northern Ghana on their plight, they were yet to receive the needed responses on the release of the grants.
The GES, however, said the release of the grants should be done by the Scholarship Secretariat and not by the service.
March 11, 2008
THE Minister of Education, Science and Sports, Prof. Dominic Fobih, has directed the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) to immediately secure funds from other sources for release to the Scholarship Secretariat for schools in the three northern regions.
That, he said, was to ensure smooth academic activities on the various campuses until Parliament gave approval to the GETFund budget for the year after which the funds secured would be refunded.
Prof. Fobih, who made this known in an interview, said Parliament was expected to discuss the matter either today or tomorrow, after which approval would be given.
Heads of second-cycle schools in the three northern regions have said they would be compelled to send home first and second-year students by Thursday, March 13, 2008 if full grants of the first and second terms were not released.
They explained that since the beginning of the academic year in September, last year, only 40 per cent of the feeding grant for second and final-year students had been released, while nothing had been received for first-year students for the same term.
However, Prof. Fobih was quick to add that the moneys were not feeding grants, since it would have affected other senior high schools in the country, adding that “this is a special scholarship to students of northern extraction”.
He explained that the money was part of the GETFund’s allocation to the Scholarship Secretariat, which disbursed it to schools of the beneficiaries.
Following the threat of sending students home until the funds were released, the Ghana Education Service (GES) has appealed to the heads to exercise restraint as steps were being taken to get the grants released.
The heads of schools in the northern regions had alleged that even though they had written letters to the sector ministry, the GES and the three regional ministers in northern Ghana on their plight, they were yet to receive the needed responses on the release of the grants.
The GES, however, said the release of the grants should be done by the Scholarship Secretariat and not by the service.
RME to be re-introduced
Page 3
March 11, 2008
Religious and Moral Education (RME) is to be re-introduced as a separate subject at the basic education level with effect from the next academic year, the Ministry of Education, Science and Sports has announced.
The sector Minister, Prof Dominic Fobih, who made this known in an interview with the Daily Graphic, said the Curriculum Research and Development Division (CRDD) of the ministry was working with the religious bodies to develop the syllabus for the subject.
He said RME was not abolished under the educational reform but integrated into other subjects, adding, “It will now be made to stand on its own.”
According to him, the ministry was open to suggestions from the public on issues about education, saying, “We are a listening ministry.”
The Catholic Bishops Conference, in a communiqué issued in Kumasi in November last year after its meeting, called on the government to re-introduce RME as a subject, instead of a concept, in the school curriculum.
According to the Bishops, “sidelining religion and morality from education is tantamount to condemning the human person to a lack of means to develop himself or herself fully to be a human being in the society”.
The position of the Bishops attracted other voices concerning the non-inclusion of RME in the school curriculum, particularly from the Christian and Muslim communities.
Following the outcry over the matter, President Kufuor directed the ministry to facilitate a dialogue among the stakeholders of the educational sector to resolve the controversy over the teaching of the subject.
As a result, a 29-member committee, under the chairmanship of Prof Anamuah-Mensah, a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Education, Winneba, was convened at the instance of the sector minister to take a second look at the teaching of RME as a subject at the basic level.
President Kufuor, in his Independence Day address, said the government had decided to revisit the reinstatement of RME on the school curriculum.
Prof Fobih said the ministry was going to carry out what the President had requested.
March 11, 2008
Religious and Moral Education (RME) is to be re-introduced as a separate subject at the basic education level with effect from the next academic year, the Ministry of Education, Science and Sports has announced.
The sector Minister, Prof Dominic Fobih, who made this known in an interview with the Daily Graphic, said the Curriculum Research and Development Division (CRDD) of the ministry was working with the religious bodies to develop the syllabus for the subject.
He said RME was not abolished under the educational reform but integrated into other subjects, adding, “It will now be made to stand on its own.”
According to him, the ministry was open to suggestions from the public on issues about education, saying, “We are a listening ministry.”
The Catholic Bishops Conference, in a communiqué issued in Kumasi in November last year after its meeting, called on the government to re-introduce RME as a subject, instead of a concept, in the school curriculum.
According to the Bishops, “sidelining religion and morality from education is tantamount to condemning the human person to a lack of means to develop himself or herself fully to be a human being in the society”.
The position of the Bishops attracted other voices concerning the non-inclusion of RME in the school curriculum, particularly from the Christian and Muslim communities.
Following the outcry over the matter, President Kufuor directed the ministry to facilitate a dialogue among the stakeholders of the educational sector to resolve the controversy over the teaching of the subject.
As a result, a 29-member committee, under the chairmanship of Prof Anamuah-Mensah, a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Education, Winneba, was convened at the instance of the sector minister to take a second look at the teaching of RME as a subject at the basic level.
President Kufuor, in his Independence Day address, said the government had decided to revisit the reinstatement of RME on the school curriculum.
Prof Fobih said the ministry was going to carry out what the President had requested.
State funding of political parties-It's Not The Answer
Front page
March 11, 2008
A Ghanaian political scientist, Prof Emmanuel Gyimah-Boadi, has stated that the suggestion to dedicate a certain percentage of taxes to fund political parties should be carefully thought through because other constitutional bodies equally need funding.
“Will this mean that we raise additional taxes or we annex a percentage of the existing tax revenue? Will that come at the expense of other public goods that are funded from tax revenue, such as the school feeding programme, the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme or the Northern Development Fund?” he asked in an interview with the Daily Graphic yesterday.
According to him, Ghanaians must be careful not to set up a chain reaction in which a percentage of tax revenue would be specifically attached to a long list of equally important public goods.
Prof Gyimah-Boadi, a Political Science Professor at the University of Ghana, Legon, and Executive Director of the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD - Ghana), was reacting to proposals made by four political parties and the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) that the state should fund political parties.
The New Patriotic Party (NPP), the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the Convention People’s Party (CPP) and the People’s National Convention (PNC), under the umbrella of the Ghana Political Parties Programme (GPPP) and the IEA, are expected to launch the proposal for state funding of political parties tomorrow.
Prof Gyimah-Boadi noted that there were fundamental issues to consider in order to place the idea of state funding of political parties in a proper perspective, adding that there was a general problem of unfunded mandates “in our current democratic governance arrangements”.
He said the 1992 Constitution imposed significant obligations on political parties to undertake key democratic governance functions but made no clear provisions for their financing.
Prof Gyimah-Boadi noted that political parties shared that predicament with other public and quasi-public agencies such as the media, adding that the media were also assigned a crucial role in democratic governance in the Fourth Republic “but without a clear idea of its funding”.
“We must take together the challenge of how to fund Ghanaian political parties, the media, civil society and all other key agencies that are crucial to the effective functioning of our system of democratic governance,” he emphasised.
Another difficult challenge, he said, was the chronic weakness experienced by key constitutional bodies such as the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Parliament, the Judiciary, among other bodies.
Prof Gyimah-Boadi indicated that those bodies were explicitly mandated to charge their expenditure to the Consolidated Fund but suffered “chronic lack of funding”.
He said the Electoral Commission had suffered the same fate and, “like the others, it has typically depended substantially on foreign donors”.
“At the very least, we must come up with a credible formula for funding these constitutional bodies,” he suggested, and said there was the need to find creative ways of addressing the challenge of funding political parties and in a manner that was also sustainable.
He described the issue of state funding of political parties as a great idea because it was essential for sustained multi-party democracy.
“As an ardent advocate of democracy and democratic governance, I fully support it in principle and would want to see it in practice,” he stated.
He welcomed the draft legislation which was seeking to provide a legal basis and framework for the funding of political parties, adding, “We welcome and await the tabling of this draft legislation in Parliament so that we and the members of the public can have the opportunity to review it, make inputs into it and hopefully help to render the legislation fully credible and implementable.”
March 11, 2008
A Ghanaian political scientist, Prof Emmanuel Gyimah-Boadi, has stated that the suggestion to dedicate a certain percentage of taxes to fund political parties should be carefully thought through because other constitutional bodies equally need funding.
“Will this mean that we raise additional taxes or we annex a percentage of the existing tax revenue? Will that come at the expense of other public goods that are funded from tax revenue, such as the school feeding programme, the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme or the Northern Development Fund?” he asked in an interview with the Daily Graphic yesterday.
According to him, Ghanaians must be careful not to set up a chain reaction in which a percentage of tax revenue would be specifically attached to a long list of equally important public goods.
Prof Gyimah-Boadi, a Political Science Professor at the University of Ghana, Legon, and Executive Director of the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD - Ghana), was reacting to proposals made by four political parties and the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) that the state should fund political parties.
The New Patriotic Party (NPP), the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the Convention People’s Party (CPP) and the People’s National Convention (PNC), under the umbrella of the Ghana Political Parties Programme (GPPP) and the IEA, are expected to launch the proposal for state funding of political parties tomorrow.
Prof Gyimah-Boadi noted that there were fundamental issues to consider in order to place the idea of state funding of political parties in a proper perspective, adding that there was a general problem of unfunded mandates “in our current democratic governance arrangements”.
He said the 1992 Constitution imposed significant obligations on political parties to undertake key democratic governance functions but made no clear provisions for their financing.
Prof Gyimah-Boadi noted that political parties shared that predicament with other public and quasi-public agencies such as the media, adding that the media were also assigned a crucial role in democratic governance in the Fourth Republic “but without a clear idea of its funding”.
“We must take together the challenge of how to fund Ghanaian political parties, the media, civil society and all other key agencies that are crucial to the effective functioning of our system of democratic governance,” he emphasised.
Another difficult challenge, he said, was the chronic weakness experienced by key constitutional bodies such as the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Parliament, the Judiciary, among other bodies.
Prof Gyimah-Boadi indicated that those bodies were explicitly mandated to charge their expenditure to the Consolidated Fund but suffered “chronic lack of funding”.
He said the Electoral Commission had suffered the same fate and, “like the others, it has typically depended substantially on foreign donors”.
“At the very least, we must come up with a credible formula for funding these constitutional bodies,” he suggested, and said there was the need to find creative ways of addressing the challenge of funding political parties and in a manner that was also sustainable.
He described the issue of state funding of political parties as a great idea because it was essential for sustained multi-party democracy.
“As an ardent advocate of democracy and democratic governance, I fully support it in principle and would want to see it in practice,” he stated.
He welcomed the draft legislation which was seeking to provide a legal basis and framework for the funding of political parties, adding, “We welcome and await the tabling of this draft legislation in Parliament so that we and the members of the public can have the opportunity to review it, make inputs into it and hopefully help to render the legislation fully credible and implementable.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)