The Political Parties Registration Commission (PPRC), charged with the responsibility of monitoring the activities of political parties in the country, is reported to be facing funding problems.
Speaking to this press the commission’s Assistant Information Officer, Solomon Brima disclosed that the commission had over the past months been engaging political parties in the area of training to ensure political tolerance, since that fell within the commission’s mandate.
Mr Brima said they had also held intra-political party reconciliation conferences to look at some of the problems that arouse among political parties, with particular reference to the awards of symbol.
The Assistant Information Officer further disclosed that at the moment, the commission was working on implementing programmes aimed at sensitizing the electorates nationwide especially in ensuring women’s [participation in the coming local council election “since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommended a 30% women representation in decision making”, but however said the commission could not undertake all its plans due to the unavailability of enough funds.
The commission, Mr Brima said, had been getting funding from donor partners like the International Foundation for Election System, UN, USAID, but that “the commission currently does not have the needed funds to implement its programme of actions”.
“Government’s support financially is very slow to come. Since February this year when we got our quarterly allocation from government, we are yet to get any”, the assistant information officer said.
On the area of logistics, Mr Brima said as a commission, they recently received vehicles from the United Nations Development Programme but however lamented that the three vehicles could not be enough to undertake all of the commission’s operations since it had regional offices.
He however commended UNDP for its efforts in helping the commission
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