The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

THE group Citizens for a Better Bahamas has appealed to the government to start bipartisan talks with the Free National Movement to enact political campaign finance reform.

The advocacy group pointed to recent controversy surrounding the implications of campaign finance donations made by Canadian fashion designer Peter Nygard to the Progressive Liberal Party. There are also concerns that Mr Nygard’s billionaire Lyford Cay neighbour Louis Bacon has made political donations.

CBB representative Lemarque Campbell said the group has been working closely with global anti-corruption network Transparency International (TI) to monitor and report on the matter.

Mr Campbell, a lawyer, said: “[CBB] calls on the government to work with the opposition in a bipartisan manner in ensuring that the appropriate political campaign finance reforms are enacted, as it will restore Bahamians’ trust in our political system going forward towards the upcoming election.

“CBB appreciates that certain parliamentarians have come out and stated that there is a need for campaign finance reform,” he said.

“However, we need to go further and actually implement these reforms based on best practices. CBB will continue to dialogue with TI in raising the Bahamas’ position on these reforms to an international level.”

Transparency International has established partnerships and local chapters in more than 100 countries, including Jamaica as well as Trinidad and Tobago.

The global network turned its focus to The Bahamas last year with CBB in transition to become a TI national contact. Mr Campbell said the local group was on track to complete the accreditation process.

He underscored CBB’s support of research gathered by TI regarding political campaign finance reform, which sets out best practices for the regulation of public and private funding in political campaigns; establishment of ceilings on expenditures during elections; and general oversight and accountability mechanisms. TI’s Anti-Corruption Helpdesk also provided information on electoral campaign reporting rules.

Mr Campbell said: “CBB also agrees that political parties and candidates should regularly report on donations received and expenditures during electoral campaigns – even to the extent of providing these reports online for the public to view in real time.

“Further, we stress the need for an independent and well-resourced supervisory body with investigative powers to proactively conduct investigations throughout and after the elections to ensure political parties and candidates follow campaign finance rules.”

Transparency International annually ranks countries based on how corrupt its public sector is perceived to be, using data from surveys of leading institutions like the World Bank. The country ranked 24 in its 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index – on a scale of 0, very corrupt, to 100 being very clean – with a score of 71 out of a possible 100. However, The Bahamas was not listed in its 2015 report.