Wilfred Edwin
22 June 2009
Nairobi — Tanzania is to audit the finances of all political parties in the country, including the ruling party, in order to prevent dirty money and money laundering tainting the next general election, slated for October 2010.
The parties will have to divulge all sources of funding whether foreign or local donors, including businessmen, who, it is an open secret, have so far been funding both the ruling and opposition political parties clandestinely.
An amendment to the Political Parties Act of 1992 gives powers to the Controller and Auditor General to audit the accounts of all 17 registered political parties and others that may be registered from July this year to enforce transparency and accountability.
Under the existing Act, parties were merely required to submit audited annual accounts to the Registrar of Political Parties, without these accounts being subjected to further scrutiny.
The audit will revolutionise the manner in which political parties have been sourcing their funds especially during elections and hopefully stop party officials from diverting funds to unaccounted personal gains.
Registrar of Political Parties John Tendwa told The EastAfrican in Dar es Salaam last week that the law -- which was passed in March and has already been assented to by President Jakaya Kikwete -- will empower the CAG to audit finances and assets of and ensure proper management of funds within political parties.
For a long time, political parties have been required to submit audited financial accounts to the registrar, but they have not been abiding by the law as the office has no powers over this, but now they will be accountable to the Auditor General.
Under the Political Parties Act 1992, "Parties are required to disclose all funds received from outside the United Republic (Section, 13(2)). Parties are required to submit annual audited accounts of funds and property to the Registrar (Section 14(1))."
But the new legislation stipulates that the annual statements of the account of political parties will be audited by the CAG, who will subsequently issue a report on the audited accounts.
Currently, sub section (5) of Article 143 of the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania requires the CAG to audit all public authorities and other bodies at least once in every financial year.
Government subsidies, which are given to selected political parties and other donations -- from within and outside the country -- forms part of the funding system for political parties in Tanzania. But in many cases, the money has been a major source of conflict within parties.
Funding of political activities -- particularly election campaigns, which have in recent times been attracting massive donations from powerful business tycoons -- is cited by analysts as a major weakness that results into the perpetuation of corrupt alliances between politicians and businessmen.
Zitto Kabwe, Member of Parliament for Kigoma North for opposition party Chama Cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema), told The EastAfrican that he had presented a motion for the current amendments before the House in 2007.
Mr Kabwe said the significance of the law lies in the fact that two per cent of the Tanzanian government's recurrent expenditure -- which runs into billions of dollars -- is supposed to be allocated for political parties, although of late it has hardly been reaching 0.8 per cent.
The distribution of this money is done in such a way that CCM, owing to its size and strengths, gets the lion's share of 80 per cent of all the money that goes to political parties as subsidies, while CUF and Chadema get 10 and 8 per cents respectively," he said, adding that since these huge sums of money belong to taxpayers, it is important that they be properly accounted for.
All political parties with at least five per cent of the votes cast for parliamentarians are entitled to benefit from the government funding.
Currently, the ruling Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM), Civic United Front (CUF) and Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema) account for 98 per cent of this money, the Tanzania Labour Party (TLP), National Convention for Construction and Reform (NCCR Mageuzi) and UDP (United Democratic Party), share the remaining two per cent.
According to Mr Kabwe, in the 2006/2007 financial year, the government provided $13 million to all political parties while in the 2007/2008 political parties received a total of $15 million.
During the year 2008/2009 political parties received a total of $18 million while in financial year 2009/2010 the government is to provide a total of $19 million to all political parties.
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