The Election Commission (EC) has sought opinions from registered political parties on making their audit reports public.
In separate letters, the EC on October 29 asked the parties to give their opinions within 15 working days.
“If your party’s response is not received within the stipulated time, it will be understood that you have no objection to making the reports public,” said the letters to the general secretaries of the parties.
The EC sent letters to 37 of the 40 registered political parties, as two of them have recently got their registrations while the High Court on August 1 declared Jamaat-e-Islami’s registration with the EC illegal.
The move to seek opinions came following an Information Commission (IC) directive on October 22. The IC suggested that the EC make the audit reports of all registered political parties public through its website considering it as public document.
On June 6, Badiul Alam Majumdar, secretary of civil society platform Sushashoner Jonno Nagorik, had asked one of the information officers of the EC to provide him the audit reports of all political parties.
But the officer instead requested Majumdar to collect the reports from political parties. This prompted Majumdar to file a complaint with the IC on September 9 under the Right to Information Act, 2009.
In response, the IC on October 22 held a hearing at its headquarters in the capital where Majumdar and the EC official were present, among others.
In the hearing the IC observed that since the information did not impose threat to the country’s security, integrity and sovereignty, harm diplomatic relationship or damage reputation of particular individual or organisation, the audit reports should be made public.
Yesterday, EC Director (Public Relations) SM Asaduzzaman, also an information officer of the commission, told The Daily Star, “According to the information act, it requires approval from a third party to provide any of its information. That is why we have sought opinions from the political parties.”
Election Commissioner Shah Nawaz said, “The information is not ours, but for our official purpose. Hence, we need permission from its real owners to make it public.”
Former election commissioner M Sakhawat Hussain said the audit reports should be made public for ensuring transparency, accountability and acceptability.
“During our tenure [between 2007 and 2012], we made an attempt to public the audit reports, but could not do so due to some reasons,” he told The Daily Star.
Source: The Daily Star
