EC seeks Tk 25.26b to meet poll, project costs

The Election Commission (EC) has sought a Tk 25.26 billion to meet the costs of its elections, projects and administration for the Fiscal Years (FYs) 2014-15 and 2015-16, official sources said.
The government has fixed a Tk 5.71 billion ceiling for the EC and Tk 6.10 for the next two FY years of 2014-15, 2015-16 respectively. The ceiling of expenditure for the state entity is far different between allocation and real demand, an EC high official said.
Over Tk 25 billion will be needed to operate administration, elections and four approved projects as expenses for the next two FYs. EC is in Tk 13.44 billion deficit from real demand, EC sources said.
 But experts said, "The government should reduce EC's expenditure and stop wastage of public money."
The EC Acting Secretary Sirajul Islam sent a letter recently to finance secretary Fazle Kabir to seek budget allocation of over Tk 7.71 billion and over Tk 17.54 billion for FY 2014-15 and 2015-16, according to the EC data.
 "You know that bye-elections including upazila parishad election and local government election will be held in FY 2014-15. And also Union Parishad election and municipal election will be held across the country in FY 2015-16. For this, the EC has taken a financial plan to meet the costs of those elections," the letter said.
Besides, institutional development, election procedure, management, construction of upzila and regional server stations for preserving voter database and election resources centre, that are approved projects, have been continued, the EC letter mentioned.
The EC estimated Tk 3.0 billion as expenses for arranging the 10th parliamentary elections held on January 5. Of the amount, Tk 1.47 billion was allocated for meeting the expenses to conduct the election and Tk 1.44 billion for law-enforcement agencies and the armed forces division. But it later slashed the spending to Tk 2.91 billion, according to EC sources.
On the other hand, the holding of the upazila polls in six phases has increased the expenditure on law enforcement agencies and poll arrangements. The total poll expenditure might be over Tk 2 billion, EC sources said.
However, everything depends on the situation. The expenses have increased as several phases of polls are being held in a same district," they said.
The Commission's budget wing official said Tk 670 million had already been released in two phases.