New EC Guideline: Controversial posts stay, pay rises too
The Election Commission has drafted a guideline for imparting training to polls-related officials, keeping in it controversial positions like "special speakers" and "course advisers" amid allegations of financial corruption through such posts.
In the draft guideline, it has also suggested raising allowances for those positions.
Chief Election Commissioner KM Nurul Huda, election commissioners and top officials of the EC secretariat attended training programmes as "special speakers" ahead of the 2018 national election and the fifth upazila polls in 2019.
Election commissioners and the EC secretary also attended the training programmes as "course advisers" and the director general of Electoral Training Institute (ETI) as "course director", according to EC officials.
The EC has been facing criticism from many eminent citizens and left-leaning political parties over alleged financial and other irregularities.
Forty-two noted citizens of the country have written twice to President Abdul Hamid, demanding formation of Supreme Judicial Council to probe allegations of "serious financial corruption and gross election-related misconduct" against the EC.
They said members of the EC under Huda's leadership indulged in misconduct and irregularities, including in delivering speeches as "special speakers" at training programmes ahead of the national polls in 2018 and the fifth upazila elections.
They sent the first letter to the president in December last year and the second one in January this year.
Besides, the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General has raised audit objections, saying government allowances were given against positions, including "special speakers" and "course advisers", though the finance ministry did not approve such positions for the training programmes.
Newly appointed EC Secretary Humayun Kabir said he will be able to comment on the draft guideline only after learning about it in detail.
Md Alamgir, the immediate past senior secretary of the EC, said EC officials have prepared a draft guideline which was placed before the commission.
He further said the commission has asked the officials concerned to review the draft guideline, which is yet to be finalised.
THE GUIDELINE
The Daily Star has obtained a copy of the draft guideline prepared by a four-member committee for imparting planning and management training under the Electoral Training Institute and Budget Standardization Policy 2020.
The CEC and election commissioners will be "special speakers" in training programmes, while the EC secretary and additional secretary will attend those as "guest speaker" and "course adviser".
The DG of the ETI will carry out the responsibility of "course director" for "less important" training programmes, according to the draft.
It has proposed raising the allowance for a "special speaker" to Tk 7,500 from Tk 5,000 for a training session.
"A course adviser will get Tk 8,000 for the entire course having several sessions. He or she will get the money only once," said one of the committee members seeking anonymity.
A "course adviser" now gets between Tk 2,500 and Tk 5,000 for each session.
Allowance hike has been suggested for election commissioners and EC secretariat officials for attending a session lasting one and a half hours. At present, the duration of each session is one hour, the committee member mentioned.
Once the guideline is finalised, it might be sent to the finance ministry for approval, added the member.
Asked, committee chief and EC Joint Secretary Abul Kasem refused to comment on the matter.
ALLEGATIONS
Forty-two eminent citizens on December 14 last year urged the president to constitute Supreme Judicial Council to probe allegations of corruption and misconduct by the EC.
In its letter to the president, they said the current EC indulged in misconduct and irregularities, including Tk 2-crore expenditure on "special speakers" for delivering speeches in training programmes ahead of the 11th national election and fifth upazila polls.
In reply, the CEC on December 24 said the allegations over the Tk 2-crore expenditure were made on false grounds.
The eminent citizens in their second letter on January 17 again raised allegations of irregularities in the EC's expenditure on training programmes. They cited a media report that some of the EC officials embezzled at least Tk 11 crore from the training budget.
The report also made mentions of allegations against 18 people, including the CEC, commissioners and top EC officials that they took at least Tk 3 crore of the Tk 11 crore.