Submission of election expense details due today

Hossen Sohel of DOT
The 1,850 contestants of the 11th national election have until today to submit their statements on election expenses.
Failure to submit the statements are punishable by fine and jail terms ranging between two to seven years, according to the Representation of the People Order (RPO), reports bdnews24.com.
After the 2014 general election, 33 among 500 contestants had failed to meet the deadline. A case was filed against Jatiya Party Chairman HM Ershad after he did not provide information of expenses from one of the seats he contested.
The expense limit set for each candidate is Tk 2.5 million. The latest polls had 1,850 contestants. The maximum expenditure allowed per voter is Tk 10.
The gazette with results from 298 seats was published by the Election Commission on Jan 1.
All contestants, be they winners or losers, must have their polling agents fill in the expenditure form for submission within 30 days of the publishing of the gazette, said EC Joint Secretary Farhad Ahmed.
Election contestants must start a separate bank account for election expenses and disburse spending from that account only, according to the RPO.
Also, the contestants detail expenses of money spent for each campaign sector by submitting vouchers to their respective returning officers. That statement has to be sent by post to the EC Secretariat after affidavit.
The returning officers have already informed contestants about the requirements, said Farhad.
In case a contestant defies the rules set by the RPO, the returning officer will file a case with the High Court within six months of the offence.