The Senate yesterday passed a motion that will allow the Electoral Advisory Committee (EAC), to table a report in Parliament on party funding and election campaign financing, within three months.

Opposition senators at first refused to support the original wording of the motion by Government Senator, Professor Trevor Munroe, which would require the EAC to table its report within two weeks to Parliament.

Pressure on the EAC

Leader of Opposition Business in the Senate, Anthony Johnson, in his contribution to the debate, which lasted more than three hours, said he could not support a resolution that would put pressure on the EAC to submit its report.

"For us to say that they must come up with something in two weeks, when the man (Danville Walker, director of elections) has said that he can not do it in two weeks, it will take him three months, you are putting pressure on a position, which is supposed to be an independent position," he said.

Senator Johnson said the Opposition firmly believed that the EAC, which is to soon become the Electoral Commission with the passage of bill now before the Senate, would continue to be the vehicle for electoral change.

He implied that the resolution and the discussion of campaign financing were being used to divert the nation from the real issue, which he said was the Trafigura controversy.