TCI releases list of unnamed donors in keeping with its campaign financing push

The Citizenship Initiative – one of the newly launched political parties – has released campaign financing details but has withheld the names of its 27 donors, even as it pushes for public disclosure of the source of funding of political parties.

TCI said in a statement on Tuesday said when parties are not required to disclose the source of its funds, then the public is unable to know those individuals or companies which influence decision-making.

This, the party said, establishes fertile ground for “the exact sort of corruption that has stretched across governments in this country”.

Further, TCI shared the view that the introduction of oil money into developing countries like Guyana with weak institutions, overwhelmingly results in increased corruption and shady deals.

But while the party provided a list of the amounts it received in donations over a four-month period, the identities of the donors were concealed.

The statement which details the source of the funds lists the financiers as “donor” with an accompanying number in ascending order.

TCI justified the anonymous status of the donors by noting that when the party was launched last year, its founder “committed to providing the option of anonymity” in the public disclosure of the identity of its donors.

The party maintains that it has strict records of each donor.

The highest donation to the party was $462,000 and that came from a US-based supporter, while the smallest donation $2000 and that came from an online donation.

Meanwhile, the party revealed that it has received over $2.5M in donations between October 2019 and January 2020.

Of that amount, $2M has been expended with close to $500,000 of the expended amount going towards outreaches in the United States.

The party said that it has kept good on its promise by releasing campaign financing information.

“…our first commitments was to transparency, particularly in the area of campaign financing. We committed then, and since, to release information on our own campaign finances before and after the elections. Today, we fulfill as promised the first part of that commitment” TCI boasted.

TCI also noted that it released its campaign financing information for two reasons.

“The first is simple – it is the right thing to do in the interest of public accountability, whether or not it is required by law. Secondly, the primary purpose of the formation of TCI was to encourage participatory citizenship.”

The party said that even though political campaigns are expensive, it wanted to “demonstrate that with commitment, strategy and accountability, running a campaign in order to participate in the democratic process is not prohibitively expensive”. (Ravin Singh)