The Election Commission are considering changing the election rules to ensure greater transparency in the income and expenditure of political parties, a commissioner has said.

Muhammed Sohul Hussain told bdnews24.com on Monday: "The Conduct of Election Rules, 2008 will be amended to bring transparency in parties' election expenditure and annual income and expenses."

He said under the move changes would be made to the forms for election expenditure statement forms to ensure that the parties submit item-wise expenditure statements.

Letters have already been sent to the deputy election commissioners seeking their opinions on the changes, he added.

Under the existing rules, parties need to give their election expenditure statement in a single-page under the subheading of donation to candidates, campaign, transport, public meeting, staff salary, housing and administration and miscellany.

The Election Commission made registration of the parties mandatory and fixed election expenditure ceiling for them under the Representation of the People (Amendment) Order Act, 2009.

As required by the law, parties have to submit their election expenditure statements in 90 days of the national election.

Under the law, a party can spend up to Tk 7.5 million for 50 candidates, Tk 15 million for 100 candidates, Tk 30 million for 200 candidates and Tk 40 million for 300 candidates.

For the ninth general elections held on December 29 in 2008, the ruling Awami League showed an expenditure of Tk 45 million and the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party Tk 44.9 million for more than 200 candidates and Jamaat-e-Islami Tk 7.47 million for 38 candidates.

Although the BNP allowed journalists to see its detailed expenditure statements, the ruling party did not.

The BNP statement showed that it spent Tk 12 million for donation, Tk 8.45 million for campaign, Tk 6.32 million for transport, Tk 1.31 million for public meeting, Tk 1.89 million for staff salary, Tk 4.72 million for housing, and Tk 0.27 million for miscellaneous items.

EC Secretariat deputy director Mihir Sarwar Morshed told bdnews24.com that after changes to the rules, political parties will not be able to submit the expenditure statements to the EC in the previous way.

"They will have to show expenditure item-wise and very meticulously," he said.

Mihir said in the new form a party will have to give its name, address, election symbol, name of the bank and account number, number of constituencies it contested, names of party chief and general secretary and total expenditure figure on the front page.

The new form will also require the party to show the item-wise expenditure for public meetings/street gatherings (including the expenditure for loudspeakers), posters (mentioning the names of the press, cost of design, size, quantity, per-poster costing, breakdown of cost for printing, papers, transport and hanging), leaflets, handbills, stickers, banners, digital banners (mentioning name of the printing materials), indoor meetings (mentioning dates, time, venues, rental costs, labourers' pays and charges for furniture), loudspeakers (the vehicles used for the loudspeakers, their rental and labourers' pay), portraits/symbol (sizes and materials used, transport and hanging cost), office expenses (including rental, staff salary and furniture cost of central, district, Upazila and city offices), entertainment (with per capital daily expense breakdown), transports, and campaign through television channels or other electronic media (mentioning the names of the media).

Sohul said the EC is also reviewing the annual income and expenses of the parities. "Their audit reports will also be reviewed if any question is raised about their transparency."