the combined resources of a ruling party and, thus, the state. As we will see later, the Zimbabwe regime banned foreign funding, inclusive of that from bona fide citizens working and living abroad, many of whom are suspected to be supporters or sympathizers of the main opposition MDC party. Returns on Investments as Source of Party Financing Some political parties, especially the older ones dating from before 1990, such as the PDCI, KANU in Kenya, and UNIP in Zambia had extensive investment portfolios that generated substantial incomes. In Uganda, President Yoweri’s National Resistance Movement has an investment arm whose income he expects to be adequate to be more or less adequate to oil his party’s activities. As will be shown below, the ruling Zanu-PF in Zimbabwe has had extensive though murky and opaque investment portfolios since Independence in 1980 though apparently the accounts had not been properly audited until recently. 3.5. Other Sources of Funds Subscriptions and Fund-Raising: There is evidence that political parties still derive some income from membership subscriptions and local fundraising. For instance, in Zambia a candidate for the post of UNIP Treasurer donated materials for the printing of a large consignment of party membership cards (Times of Zambia, 30 November 1999), and by so doing suggesting that the sale of membership cards (membership dues) still raised money for the party. Fund raising is not always a reliable and rich source of party funding. In Ghana, when the NDC held a fundraising dinner-dance in a major port city with a pool of contractors and other businessmen who could be expected to be eager to pay their way into the good books of the government, it raised the equivalent of only USD 600 gross, before the cost of hiring the venue, the band, food and so on had been deducted (Sunday Mirror 28 November 1999). From the amounts mentioned in such reports, it is clear that these sources can yield only a tiny proportion of the income required by the political parties. However, the general level of poverty means that setting membership fees at levels that would produce respectable incomes for the parties would also put them beyond the reach of most people. Further, substantial numbers of voters and potential party members in many African countries probably take the view that they should be paid by political parties and politicians rather than that the other way round, i.e. that they should pay - through dues and local fundraising activities - for the privilege of supporting their favourite party or candidate. An incomparably more lucrative source of funds, but only for governing parties, is state funds funnelled through front organizations, voluntary groups and NGOs affiliated with the party but which receive state subventions for ostensibly doing useful and necessary community or welfare work. Gyimah-Boadi (2000) draws attention to Ghanaian examples, and Throup and Hornsby discuss Kenyan examples of this phenomenon. Youth for KANU 92 and the “Moi fan clubs” were set up for the 1992 Kenyan elections as “a means to siphon huge amounts of money from the government and party coffers into the political arena”. The authors quote a Kenyan newspaper, the Weekly Express, which claimed that Youth for KANU 92 had a budget of KES 3 billion (Int’l $311 million), “mainly looted from parastatals such as the National Social Security Fund and Kenya National Assurance Company” (Throup and Hornsby 1998:354–355). 3.6. Indirect Funding Indirect funding is any help or resources which can be shown to have monetary value but are given free to political parties or taken or used freely by governing parties. Free air time on radio and television or free advertising space in the publicly-owned print media are good examples of the former; a governing party’s use of state vehicles (Defence Force helicopters in the case of one KANU candidate), government employees, office equipment and so on are examples of the latter. 15