Kathmandu, Feb 9: The Election Commission has urged industrialists and businesspeople not to provide financial support or donations to political parties and candidates in a non-transparent manner.
Calling entrepreneurs and traders to its Bahadur Bhawan office, commission officials asked them to conduct transactions through bank accounts as far as possible and to issue mandatory receipts for any donation below Rs 25,000.
A few days ago, the commission made it compulsory for political parties and candidates to open designated bank accounts by introducing a new procedure. Candidates are barred from conducting cash transactions outside these accounts.
Election Commission spokesperson Narayan Prasad Bhattarai said representatives of the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry were invited to the commission office and requested to support the effort to make political funding more transparent from this election onward.
“Party representatives or candidates may still ask for cash support instead of bank transactions. But we have urged businesspeople to insist on bank-based contributions,” Bhattarai said, quoting commission officials. “The commission has stressed that real reform begins when financial support becomes transparent.”
According to Bhattarai, donors were also asked to provide support from their personal bank accounts rather than from company or firm accounts. The commission said contributions made through companies could be shown under different headings and later spent under unrelated accounts, so it asked that all political donations be paid from individual accounts.
In some countries, political donations made by private companies receive tax concessions, but since Nepal has no such provision, the commission has asked donors to use personal accounts.
To monitor candidates’ income and expenditure, the commission has assigned chiefs of district treasury and accounts control offices as monitoring officers in each district. They will oversee bank accounts as well as campaign spending.
The commission has also started monitoring expenses incurred by well-wishers on behalf of candidates, including spending on social media advertising, treating such costs as the candidate’s own expenses.
Last week, the commission endorsed the Election Campaign Bank Account Procedure, 2082 BS. Under the procedure, any amount received in cash or by cheque must first be deposited into the bank account before being spent. Candidates receiving donations of Rs 25,000 or more must receive the amount directly into their bank accounts. The new rule also requires amounts below that threshold to be deposited into the account after issuing a cash receipt or voucher.
Candidates must keep detailed records of any individual or institution donating more than Rs 100,000. The commission has stated that such records will remain confidential except as required by law.
The accounts must be closed 35 days after the election, while banks must retain account details for six years. The commission will immediately close the accounts of candidates whose candidacy is cancelled.
The commission has also warned that if financial support is found to have been given or received in violation of existing laws, it will not only pursue election offence charges but also seek investigations through concerned agencies.
People’s News Monitoring Service
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