Worried by the reckless formation of parties, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has increased registration fee from N100,000 to N1million.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega had a meeting with party leaders in Abuja last Tuesday.
Some political parties, led by the Congress for Progressive Charge (CPC), urged the commission to increase the fee to N5million to prevent abuse of party system.
Also the commission has put in place strict rules to monitor finances of all political parties in the country.
These are the major highlights in the Draft Guidelines for Regulating Political Parties, which were presented to political parties at a meeting in Abuja for review.
All the parties have one week to send in their written input on the draft before the final copy is produced by INEC.
According to sources at the closed door session in INEC headquarters, the commission expressed worry about the emergence of mushroom parties.
One of the sources said: “In the draft guidelines, INEC has proposed increase in the registration fee from N100,000 to N1Million. All the parties embraced the proposal and spoke about the prevalent abuse of party registration system.
“The parties claimed that the N100,000 rates accounted for the reckless applications for new parties. These irritants forming parties just look for N100,000 and apply for registration because the fee itself is abysmally low.
In fact, the National Secretary of CPC, Buba Galadima, observed that N1million is too small. He said the registration fee should be about N5million and above.
“The parties at the meeting unanimously endorsed Galadima’s proposal that INEC should jack up the fee from its proposed N1million to N5million.
“The electoral commission promised to look into further demand for the review of the registration fee by the parties.
“The acceptance of the recommendation is at the discretion of INEC. But we are hopeful that it will listen to the parties. Certainly, the new guidelines are meant to check frivolous applications for party registration.
Another source at the session said: “Our discussions focused on new guidelines on party registration, monitoring of finances, membership register with INEC, alteration of party constitution and delineation of constituencies.
“INEC has put in place comprehensive guidelines on how to track finances of political parties, including donations. With the new rules, parties are expected to make full disclosure of all accruable funds or generated funds either through members donations by individuals or anonymous sources or other means. They will also account for every fund at their disposal which auditors will verify.
“The essence of the new financial rules is to prevent money bags from hijacking parties and to control funds limits, especially campaign funds.
“With the new rules, INEC will also be able to determine when a party has exceeded the threshold allowed by law.
A third source at the meeting explained that the draft guidelines deal with “verification of members of political parties. Each member of a party is expected to have biometric related particulars so that at the tap of a finger, any claim can be verified.
“There will be no room again for impostors. “The parties also agreed at the session to hold quarterly meeting with INEC to resolve outstanding political and electoral issues to avoid heating up the system.
“This session will take place every Tuesday of the last month in a quarter. We have decided to institutionalize INEC-Parties Quarterly Meeting because the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) has not taken off”.
Responding to a question, the source said: “INEC made a detailed presentation on its plans to conduct delineation of constituencies nationwide as part of its plans towards 2015 poll.
“Although this is a constitutional requirement, the electoral commission said it chose to consult parties and other stakeholders to reduce tension that is usually accompanying such exercise.”
It was gathered that in view of the sensitive nature of the guidelines, parties made a request for time to further consult with their leaders and members.
The source added: “At the end of the day, INEC gave the parties a one-week deadline to make written representation or input into the guidelines. ###
