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CEC, election commissioners must resign over irregularities

Graft watchdog demands following newspaper report

Staff Correspondent
Transparency International Bangladesh yesterday demanded immediate resignation of the chief election commissioner, four other election commissioners and concerned officials of the Election Commission (EC), for their alleged involvement in irregularities and corruption in the name of giving speech and training ahead of the national and upazila elections.
The anti-corruption watchdog also demanded
fair investigation into the allegations and ensuring accountability.
In a statement following a newspaper report in this regard, it also expressed deep concern over the alleged irregularities and corruption by the CEC, four other election commissioners and other EC officials.
TIB executive director Iftekharuzzaman said such activities by the CEC, election commissioners and officials of the constitutional organisation is completely immoral and unexpected.
"Such allegations against almost all officials of a commission is rare in the history of Bangladesh," he said in the statement.
TIB said such immoral activities by the top EC officials outdid the “pillow scam" at Rooppur Nuclear Power plant.
Saying that such allegations raise questions about the entire commission, TIB said the CEC and other election commissioners should resign as the highest responsible persons for the serious irregularities and moral turpitude, in a bid to restore the constitutional dignity of EC.
According to a report in Bangla daily Prothom Alo yesterday, the CEC, four commissioners, EC secretary, an additional secretary and two joint secretaries, have pocketed over Tk 2 crore, allocated for delivering "special talks" at training programmes for the 11th national parliamentary election and the upazila polls which followed.
Additionally, the EC secretary at the time (presently secretary of the local government division) alone drew Tk 47 lakh as the "course consultant". He was paid separately as a "special speaker", though the exact
remuneration for this is not known.
According to EC sources, the election commission allocated Tk 61.25 crore for training during the parliamentary election held on December 30 last year. And another Tk 61.75 crore was allocated for trainings pertaining to the upazila elections.
According to information from the election commission, those who received payment in the name of delivering talks as "special speakers", included chief election commissioner KM Nurul Huda, election commissioners Mahbub Talukdar, Rafiqul Islam, Shahadat Hossain Chowdhury and Kabita Khanam, secretary Helal Uddin Ahmed, additional secretary Mokhlesur Rahman and two joint secretaries Abul Kasem and Kamrul Hasan.
Four more joint secretaries were added as 'special speakers' during the upazila election. And directorgeneral of the Election Training Institute (ETI) Mustafa Faruk took around Tk 19.39 lakh as "course director" for an upazila election training course. In other words, these officials pocketed over Tk 2 crore as “special speakers", "course advisor", and "course director".