Who Pays The Piper?

"The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) set off a firestorm on Tuesday with the headline grabbing allegation that the PNP had accepted a donation of more than $30 million from the oil trading company Trafigura."

Source: www.radiojamaica.com


So this whole thing is really about party campaign financing. How the politicians get their money to launch lavish political campaigns and even more lavish political conferences and thus ultimately gain power.

In the Jamaican political financing game, the ruling PNP seem to be a ways ahead what with $30 million ($441,176 US) from the oil company that also has an oil trading arrangement with the Government!

Imagine if every company that has a contract with Jamaica gives $30 million to the PNP...damn that would probably make the PNP the single richest entity in the country!

And well that would make the JLP certain of yet another election loss. Remember that four and six record we spoke of yesterday? Well that would quickly become five and seven!

So the JLP has blown the whistle! And the PNP's response is basically "'bite me' we've done nothing wrong."


And unfortunately, they're not wrong!

You see J.A has been discussing campaign financing since independence. It came to a head in the tumultuos '70's, when the JLP accused the PNP of going communist and getting help from communist countries. While the PNP accused the JLP of getting assistance from the U.S.

The then leaders of the parties, Michael Manley (PNP) and Edward Seaga (JLP) never came to any decision on the matter. The former is dead and the latter has retired from active politics.

And today, almost 30 years later we're still discussing this!

The issues are quite simply:
1) who is allowed to give money to a political party?
2) should political party financing be a strict responsibility of the state?
3) is it time for a decided on code of ethics for political parties?

Three questions with a variety of opinions, and opinions which change depending on who's in power!

If this were a JLP government with Bruce Golding at the helm, would he turn down 30 million dollars from a company that does business with his government? And how would the PNP react?