Surveillance has been tightened on the bank accounts of candidates and their families after the commission's instructions to use the banking system to fund election expenses were ignored.
What you should know
The Election Commission has started monitoring the bank accounts of the families of candidates for the House of Representatives elections.
Despite repeated reminders to political parties and candidates to open bank accounts to spend all election-related expenses through the banking system, most candidates have spent outside of banking transactions, so the Commission has increased its monitoring of accounts including those of their families.
To make election expenses transparent, the Commission had made a provision in the code of conduct that election expenses should be made through bank accounts. After the provision that election expenses should be made through bank accounts was not followed, the Commission has increased its monitoring of bank account transactions of candidates and their family members during the election campaign.
Central Election Code of Conduct and Monitoring Committee Coordinator Commissioner Sagun Shamsher Jabra said that the Commission will decide on action against candidates who do not spend their election expenses through bank accounts on the basis of violating the election code of conduct. He mentioned that the monitoring of candidates' election expenses is being done through the District Treasury and Accounts Control Office.
'We have been monitoring the expenses made by candidates from the district level. For that, the Assistant Chief District Officer monitors the expenditure on election materials, while the officer of the Treasury and Accounts Control Office monitors the financial condition of the election candidates of the respective districts,' he said, 'We have also written to the National Bank. If the candidate has spent using the old account, then we are monitoring the transactions of the bank accounts of the candidate and the candidate's family.'
The commission had issued instructions to open a separate account for election purposes. Jabra said that the commission may decide to take action against those who do not follow the instructions under the Election Offences Act and blacklist them under the Code of Conduct.
Commissioner Jabra also urged everyone to create an environment where the election can be held in a clean, fair and fear-free environment by fully complying with the Code of Conduct.
