70pc election purchase completed: EC secretary

Seventy per cent of purchases related to the national elections have already been completed, said Election Commission Senior Secretary Akhtar Ahmed on Thursday.

“Materials like clean ballot box locks, official seals, marking seals, brass seals, hessian big bags, hessian small bags, gunny bags have been purchased for polls. Our works to collect election equipment are underway.”

Akhtar Ahmed said, “We have to buy approximately 10 materials for the elections. Of those, two materials will be provided by UNDP. They will be provided by October 15. And eight materials are being procured locally. The purchase will be completed within this month.”

The Election Commission is set to make a final decision next week on granting registration to new political parties, he said, adding that, the commission has already collected field-level information (related to registration conditions) of 22 political parties who sought registration.

”The activities of these 22 parties have been largely scrunised.”

Since the Chief Election Commissioner returned to Dhaka this (Thursday) morning (from Canada), they expect that the final decision will be made on Sunday or Monday.