Kathmandu. Acting Chief Election Commissioner Ram Prasad Bhandari has said that election expenditure would be transparent through the banking system.

During a discussion with the bankers held at the EC today, he said that a provision has been made to stop spending money in the election. He informed that the Commission has prepared a separate directive for this. As per the provision, the political parties and candidates will have to open separate bank accounts for election expenses. It was not mandatory for the parties and candidates participating in the election to spend money through bank accounts in the previous elections. From this year, the provision has been made mandatory for the political parties and candidates to spend their election expenses through bank accounts.

“An arrangement has been made for the candidates to spend between Rs 2.5 million to Rs 33 lakh, depending on the geography, and this time there will be monitoring where the money goes from the candidate’s account,” said Bhandari, the acting chief election commissioner, adding that this arrangement has been made for financial discipline.

EC Secretary Krishna Bahadur Raut said that many candidates from Sugam district have not opened their bank accounts while all the candidates from remote districts like Kalikot have opened bank accounts. He said that there should not be any problem in opening bank account as there is presence of some bank in all 753 local levels. As per the procedure, political parties and candidates should take more than Rs 25,000 from their bank accounts and spend them.

Joint Secretary and Spokesperson Narayan Prasad Bhattarai said that out of 3,406 first-past-the-post candidates, only 671 have opened bank accounts so far. Santosh Koirala, president of Nepal Bankers’ Association, said that some of the candidates could not open their accounts for lack of national identity cards. He also said that it should be made clear what will be the mechanism for the political parties and candidates to spend money.

In the program, the CEOs of various banks asked about the remaining money after the election expenses. He inquired. The commission said it would take a decision on this matter later. It is believed that this arrangement made by the Commission this time will also help in money laundering and removing Nepal from the ‘grey list’. It was stressed that this system should be further refined in the upcoming elections.