The Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has detected financial anomalies in the Election Commission’s expenditure on paying many of its trainers ahead of the last parliamentary polls and upazila elections.

It has raised audit objections, saying government allowances were given against positions, including that of “special speakers” and “course advisers”, although the finance ministry did not approve the positions for the training programmes, shows a working paper of an EC meeting, held on January 3.

The trainings were organised by the Electoral Training Institute (ETI) of EC for polls officials ahead of the 11th national election in December 2018 and upazila parishad polls in March and June 2019.

Director of Revenue audit of the CAG, the country’s supreme audit institution and also a constitutional body, raised the audit objection involving more than Tk 7 crore over the training programme, shows the EC documents.

Of it, audit objection involving Tk 1.5 core was raised on giving allowances to those who held “unapproved positions” like “special speakers” and “course advisers” when polls training was organised across the country. Audit objections involving Tk 47.44 lakh was made for the same reason for training programmes held at the ETI head office in the capital, shows EC documents.

The election commissioners and the EC secretary attended as “course advisors” while the secretary and ETI DG as “course directors”, said the officials.

“It has also been seen that the same person collected allowances for different trainings that took place at different corners of the country on the same day,” according to an audit objection letter from the CAG.

EC officials, however, said there was no scope of raising such audit objections. Since the commission is not under any ministry or government division, it does not need to take approval from the finance ministry to pay any “special speakers” or “course advisors”.

“Positions like special speakers, course advisor and course director were approved by the commission. The commission itself is empowered to spend allocated money in line with the Election Commission Secretariat Act, 2009,” EC Senior Secretary Md Alamgir told this newspaper.

“They [CAG] have asked us either to send an answer or to refund the money. We’re preparing the answer. We’ve already sent letters to the EC offices at the thana, district levels and the ETI, seeking their answers,” he said.

He also said, “Some of them have already sent their answers and the commission has approved them … We will send the answer [to the CAG] this week.”

AUDIT OBJECTION

The CAG alleged that EC officials collected more than their allocated allowances while attending training sessions across the country.

There are also allegations that in some cases “special speakers”, “course advisers” and others collected training allowances without showing any proof of attendance, apart from their signature on the acquittance roll, EC documents show.

According to the documents, “course directors” collected more than their allowances for the training programme held at the ETI head office.

The CAG also raised objections about then EC secretary, additional secretary and ETI director general collecting the allowances, according to audit objection letters.

It said the government incurred a loss of Tk 19.76 lakh because the amount was paid in training allowances to unapproved “course advisers” during the training held at the ETI head office. The government faced loss of Tk 12.75 lakh as allowances were paid to unapproved “special speakers”, it said.

It also said “course directors” collected Tk 14.93 lakh more than their fixed allowances.

“The audit objections were yet to be resolved,” said the working paper of the EC meeting.

ETI officials said that the CAG raised the audit objection in March last year. Following the procedures, ETI officials gave impromptu answers. But CAG officials did not accept their answers. Then, the CAG and ETI officials held a meeting, known as “exit meeting”, to settle the objection.

The CAG officials did not accept the answer at the exit meeting as well and asked the ETI officials to refund the money. A tripartite meeting involving EC, CAG and ETI official is now pending to settle the issue.

If the tripartite meeting fails to resolve the issue, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Accounts will have to step in, said ETI officials.

ETI Director General Nuruzzaman Talukdar refused to make any comments on the CAG audit objections.

According to EC sources, the election commission allocated Tk 57.33 crore for training during the last parliamentary polls. And another Tk 59.24 crore was allocated for training for the upazila elections.

Of the total allocation, Tk 1.04 crore was allotted for giving allowances to “special speakers” ahead of the national election and Tk 47.7 lakh was set aside for “special speakers” ahead of the upazila polls.

DEBATE OVER SPECIAL ALLOWANCE

The audit objection came to light when the EC is facing criticism, including from a section of eminent citizens and left-leaning political parties, for different types of alleged irregularities.

Forty-two eminent citizens on December 14 urged the president to constitute a supreme judicial council to probe allegations of corruption and other misconduct by the EC.

In a letter to President Abdul Hamid, they claimed that members of the EC, under KM Nurul Huda’s leadership, had indulged in misconduct and irregularities, including spending Tk 2 crore for delivering speeches as “special speakers” at trainings ahead of the 11th national election and fifth upazila elections.

In reply, Chief Election Commissioner KM Nurul Huda on December 24 said the allegation of spending Tk 2 crore on special speakers at training sessions ahead of elections were made on false grounds.

He said the allocation for special speakers for the 11th National Election was Tk 1.04 crore, and for the 5th upazila election, it was Tk 47.70 lakh.

He said according to rules and regulations all expenditures were subject to audit and if the audit objections were not settled, all unspent money will be returned to the public exchequer.

“There is no scope of financial irregularities,” he said.