Huge election expenses bad for safety net programme
Says minister
Candidates in the recently held union parishad elections have spent huge amounts of money, which is not a good sign for safety net programmes and warrants investigation, the food and disaster minister said yesterday.
Dr M Abdur Razzaque said public representatives including lawmakers and upazila and union parishad chairmen and members are mainly associated with implementing the social safety net programmes. "Those, who spent too much money to win the elections and won, would implement the safety net programmes, which is not a good sign".
The minister said the Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) should investigate why the candidates spent much money in election. He also suggested that the Election Commission should toughen its monitoring so that election expenditures become limited.
Dr Razzaque made the comments during a report launch of Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC) on social safety nets at Planning Commission in the city.
Planning Minister Air Vice-marshal (retd) AK Khandker Bir Uttam and PPRC Chairman Hossain Zillur Rahman were present at the programme.
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