Golding: PNP in healthy financial position
Published:Thursday | September 15, 2022 | 12:09 AM
People’s National Party (PNP) President Mark Golding has revealed that the 84-year-old political movement is now in a healthy financial state, having cleared its legacy debts.
As the PNP gears up for its annual conference this weekend, senior party officials were questioned on the party’s financial strength during a Gleaner Editors’ Forum on Wednesday at the newspaper’s North Street head offices in Kingston.
Golding said that when he was elected leader of the PNP in 2020, he inherited legacy debts, which the party has made significant progress in managing and paying down.
“We brought our financials current and we will be publishing our audited financials once the actual statements are finalised, but the audit work has been done,” he said. “We were the first party – and probably the only party – to have published financial statements.”
Noting that the party relies heavily on the business community for financial support, Golding told Gleaner editors and reporters that the enlightened members of the private sector see the importance of supporting the country’s political system.
“They recognise that for the democracy to function and ensure that the rights and openness of our society are maintained, they need to ensure that the democracy is healthy, and you can’t operate a political structure with no funding,” he said.
He noted that many private sector entities support the island’s two major political parties as part of good corporate governance.
“Our conference is going to be funded in that way, and to the extent that we may not raise everything that we need upfront, but to the extent that we have some payables, we will pay them down over the next few months,” he added.
PNP General Secretary Dr Dayton Campbell admitted that while in opposition, political parties have fewer donors to call on for financial support.
Campbell argued that the party received financial support not only from players in the private sector, but also from Jamaicans from all walks of life.
“We have always been a party that is about an alliance of progressive elements in the different classes of the society, so you will have persons in the different classes of the society that support the party, and we get contributions even from the grassroots level,” Campbell said.