Election campaign finance reporting must prohibit disclosure of donors – Norton

Last Updated on Friday, 24 October 2025, 21:09 by Writer

Despite the Representation of the People Act requiring parties to submit post-election financial reports to the chief election officer of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Chairman of A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), Aubrey Norton on Friday said that would not be done because there is no confidentiality about donors.

“Unless you have it within a particular framework, what you’d be doing is damaging yourself because a lot of people, who even helped you finance, say in very clear terms they do not want it to be public.

They don’t want the government to know. There is a fear in this society for the government and so I don’t see what sense is there in us going out there and advertising who we got money from and accounting in that fashion. We must do it internally but not at that level,” he told a news conference when asked by Demerara Waves Online News.

Instead, Mr Norton said there should be campaign financing reform and such legislation should not require the disclosure of financiers. Asked whether he would abide by the Representation of the People Act that requires parties to submit their expenses, he queried: “could you tell me when, in the history of this country, it was done and then I will answer you?”

Further quizzed on whether those submissions were ever made, he said there should be laws governing campaign financing that would guarantee secrecy or confidentiality. “It should, yes! Well, once you develop the laws and the stakeholders are involved, you should arrive at some kind of a formula but a lot of its success will be dependent on a change in the political culture in Guyana,” he said.

Mr Norton, who also leads the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), said the major allocator of resources in Guyana is the government rather than a free enterprise economy. “It really isn’t. It is a state-controlled economy with some private sector activities. The coming of Exxon might have shifted the balance but outside of ExxonMobil, it’s a society that is dominated by state resources,” he said.

APNU’s Ganesh Mahipaul had said his political organisation’s campaign expenses totalled about GY$300 million and the PPP’s General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo, in disputing a GY$5 billion expense figure, said his party’s was just over GY$300 million.

The United States-based Carter Center, which had expressed concern about the People’s Progressive Party Civic-led administration use of state resources to the disadvantage of its opponents in campaigning for the September 1, 2025 general elections, earlier this month called on political parties that contested the polls to obey the Representation of the People Act, to submit post-election financial reports to GECOM within 35 days of the declaration of results.