Funding of political parties in the country is “loosely governed” under the law and almost 80 per cent of their total funds escape “scrutiny” owing to lack of required laws in this regard, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Nasim Zaidi said here on Tuesday.
Zaidi, while addressing a global conference on the influence of money power in the electoral process, said it was high time that electoral reforms, which entail enactment of better laws to regulate money usage used in polls by parties and candidates, are ushered in.
“Political parties, as loosely governed under the law, they can raise any amount of resources barring contribution from government companies and foreign donations and they can spend any amount of money during election campaign in a constituency if it is related to general party propaganda,” he said.
The CEC said the limit for donations to be made by corporates to political parties has increased and hence, “this has increased the scope of receiving and spending more money at constituency level (by parties).” He also talked about monetary contributions exempt from being reported to the EC and their ramifications.