PPRC Reaffirms Its Mandate

The Executive Secretary of Political Parties Regulation Commission (PPRC), Olushogo A. David, has highlighted the role and responsibilities of the Commission.

David made this clarification during the government weekly press conference organized by the Ministry of Information and Civic Education at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Conference Room in Freetown.

According to David the PPRC was established by the 1991 constitution with the responsibility to register, regulate, and monitor political parties. He further that the constitution also mandate the commission to give equal rights and participation to all political parties adding that there is no small political party for the PPRC because they all paid the same amount of money and went through the same process. He also spoke on the responsibilities of the political opposition, which he said is to checkmate the function of government.

Olushogo opined that all those political parties had people who voted for them and believed in them, and they also had to represent them. He added that those political parties couldn’t be thrown away and noted that they had the responsibility to draw the attention of the government to certain neglected issues.

He however stated that people normally think the function of the opposition is to criticize the government and always be pessimistic. He debunked that thinking, saying the opposition equally has the right to oppose and comnend where commendations are needed. He commented that they had demonstrated fairness by issuing a query letter to the ruling party (SLPP) and doing the same to the main opposition party (APC) when it had gone out of its mandate.

He read the PPRC Act of 2022, which quoted section 21 ABC of the Act that gave political parties the power to communicate with the people, to communicate with the government on behalf of the people, and to equally ensure that they had a conversation with the government on things affecting the country.

David commends that the PPRC has an open-door policy for all political parties, in which they are represented perfectly well. It also refers to the Political Party Act that changed them from registration to regulation. “Inclusivity is one of the main pillars of PPRC,” he said.

He expressed that if PPRC was not fair, there would not have been so many political parties contesting for elections. Still, our fairness demonstrated to all political parties has prompted more people to have confidence in them to register their political parties.