Philipsburg, Sint Maarten – During its review of the donation registrations of political parties, the Electoral Council noted that several parties received an excess of what is legally allowed in donations. Both the donors who exceeded the donation limit and the parties were informed about this matter in the month of June of this year.
Three parties were requested to return excess donations as is stipulated by law and to submit evidence thereof to the Electoral Council. These parties are the Democratic Party, the National Alliance and the United People Party. To date, only the United People Party has complied with the request of the Electoral Council and submitted proper proof of refund of the excess donations.
The Electoral Council has requested the DP and the NA to submit proof of refund of the excess donations on several occasions.
With respect to the required annual reports of the parties which had to be accompanied by an auditor’s statement, of the six political parties that participated in the last elections, only the United People Party submitted a complete annual report with an accompanying auditor’s statement before the deadline of April 1, 2014.
The Democratic Party and the National Alliance requested an extension to submit the auditor’s statement regarding their financial reports. Despite several reminders the auditor’s statements from the DP and the NA have yet to be received by the Electoral Council.
In the meantime, the Electoral Council has submitted both the annual reports as well as the donation registrations of all political parties and of the candidates to the General Audit Chamber for review and audit, as is stipulated in the National Ordinance on Registration and Finances of Political Parties.
In view of the upcoming intermediate elections, the Electoral Council is calling on all parties to finalize all outstanding matters of the past parliamentary elections of August 2014 before participating in the upcoming elections.
