ISLAMABAD: A parliamentary panel has decided that returning officers (ROs) will be held responsible if polling bags are tampered with, in future elections.

A sub-committee of the parliamentary panel on electoral reforms, which met with former federal minister Zahid Hamid in the chair on Thursday, decided that it would be the responsibility of the RO to deposit sealed bags with his signature at the treasury.

Mr Hamid later told reporters that action will be taken against the returning officer of the constituency where the polling bags were found to have been tampered with.

What apparently forced the committee’s hand was the disclosure of irregularities in the previous general elections, where trash was recovered from polling bags in certain cases.

Electoral reform committee told NA-125 polling bags were filled with ‘trash’

A commission appointed to examine polling bags and other records in the NA-125 constituency of Lahore had reported that available polling bags from each polling station contained litter and dirt, reflecting the carelessness of the polling staff. “In fact each polling bag from the constituency is in such a mess that it [resembles] trash and rubbish for reasons best known to the polling personnel,” the report said.

The committee proposed to double the limit of election expenses for national and provincial assembly polls, which currently stands at Rs1 million for provincial and Rs1.5 million for National Assembly seats.

In view of the general perception that candidates often spend lavishly on their election campaigns but conceal the extent of the expenditure in their expense statements, a proposal to increase the limit of election expenses had been under consideration for quite some time. At one point, the ECP had proposed a four-fold increase in allowed election expenses, which would increase the limits to Rs4 million and Rs6 million for the provincial and National Assembly elections, respectively.

The committee also agreed that there was a need to increase the nomination fee for candidates for national and provincial assembly elections, but left a decision on the exact amount to the main committee.

The nomination fee for national and provincial assembly candidates under existing law is Rs4,000 and Rs2,000 respectively – lower than what would be the fee proposed for elections on lowest tier in some parts of the country.

Prior to the 2013 general elections, ECP had proposed a nomination fee of Rs30,000 and Rs50,000 for provincial assembly and national assembly candidates, respectively, but the proposal was rejected by a parliamentary committee at the time.

The sub-committee also agreed that there should be meaningful scrutiny of the statements of assets and liabilities annually sub

Published in Dawn, March 27th, 2015

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