THE Jamaica Labour Party has challenged the People’s National Party to deny that it has benefited from the same questionable sources of funding it insists backed the government in the 2007 general elections.

JLP deputy treasurer, Daryl Vaz threw the gauntlet down to Central Manchester MP Peter Bunting during a heated debate in Parliament Tuesday over recommendations made by the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ) that it be mandatory for political parties to be registered, and that there be greater regulation of their financial affairs.

Bunting, who was in the process of giving the party’s stance on the ECJ’s proposals that no more than 40 per cent of a party’s budget be taken from the public purse, and that there be limited public disclosure of the sources of financing, incurred the wrath of the government side when he injected this unfortunate aside:

“The PNP has always been in favour of full public disclosure of contributors. The State financing of political parties is in the interest of protecting the parties from becoming vulnerable to funding from questionable sources. The deputy treasurer (Vaz) should know that when he was feting certain persons who were contributors who have (since) been charged and convicted of running fraudulent pyramid schemes in the country. He should be concerning himself with that source of funding,” Bunting said.

For a good 15 minutes after that, pandemonium reigned as irate government MPs, amidst shouts of: “Out of order!”, “Rubbish!”, and “Withdraw that and siddung!”, vented their fury at the allegation. House Speaker Delroy Chuck, who was accused of “being too soft with them (PNP)”, tried to restore order but there was only momentary silence since the four or so attempts at an apology offered by Bunting did not appease the government side.

In the midst of the rumpus, Energy Minister James Robertson took it upon himself to unplug Bunting’s microphone. When a harassed looking orderly tried to reconnect the instrument, he was instructed to sit. The young man retreated, but moments later returned to carry out the task.

In the end, Vaz, whose comments had been drowned by the fast and furious crosstalk, rose to his own defence.

“In recent times they (PNP) have been so strident for transparency and accountability when it suits them. Let us cut out the hypocrisy about supporting full disclosure. You can’t support full disclosure until you disclose everything in the past and the present in order to go to the future,” he said, arguing that the PNP had yet to come clean about what has been dubbed the Trafigura Affair.

The Trafigura scandal grabbed the attention of Jamaicans in 2006 when the then Opposition Jamaica Labour Party revealed that the firm, which traded oil for Jamaica on the international market, had donated $31 million to an account operated by former PNP General Secretary Colin Campbell. The money was transferred to the account just before the party’s annual conference that year.

Trafigura Beheer said the money was part of a commercial agreement, but the PNP maintained that it was a donation to the party. The PNP later said the money was refunded but produced no supporting records.

“As it relates to the personal attack on me that was somehow withdrawn… you can come with anything you want, but it can’t work because the people will be the final judge. I am going to defy you and challenge you to deny that the same source of funding you’re accusing me of benefiting from, the People’s National Party didn’t benefit from. I challenge you by sitting down to answer on behalf of the People’s National Party,” Vaz said militantly.

When the debate on the substance of the report resumed, parliamentarians still could not see eye to eye on the idea of state funding for political parties. Several argued that taxpayers were already overburdened and that persons offering themselves for elected office should find their own financial backing.

In the end, convention won out and the report was adopted, but without support from the JLP’s West Central St James MP Clive Mullings and colleague MP for South West St Catherine Everald Warmington.

“I have great difficulty supporting the report from the Commission. They believe they are crown princes and emperors and anything they state is law. Parliament is supreme and at that stage there should never be any organisation or group that dictates to this House. I will not support this report,” Warmington said heatedly.

Debate on the report was postponed the previous week after House members decided that the recommendations, which will form the basis for legislation, called for closer scrutiny by a committee. That decision, had it been upheld, would have marked a departure from the convention of the legislature to rubber-stamp the recommendations of the Commission.

The registration of political parties and financing regulations is the precursor to the ECJ’s recommendations on the financing of political campaigns. The Commission has said it is now considering the matter of campaign financing and had invited interested groups to make written submissions on the matter. Meanwhile, the Commission intends to submit its report on campaign financing by December 31, 2010.

Currently there is no legislation on the regulation of political parties and their financing. However, sections 55 to 61 of the Representation of the People Act deal with campaign financing.