The Elections Commission (EC) revealed on Wednesday that the request to grant the annual allocated state funds to political parties will be submitted at the Ministry of Finance and Treasury in May.
According to the Political Parties Act, each party with membership exceeding 10,000 people should be granted the funds within the first three months of the year. The Act specifies that three months should be counted excluding public holidays. Hence this year, the eligible parties should be paid before May 8.
The opposition parties have been criticizing the government, claiming that the due date has passed and that the payments are still pending. However, EC member Ahmed Akram stated that they will send to requests to the Finance Ministry before the deadline and that the administrative work is already underway.
The Finance Ministry is responsible for processing the payments once the EC makes the formal submission. The ministry came under fire last year as the parties were granted their funds in October.
The Act states that political parties should be paid an amount from 0.1 to 0.2 percent of the annual budget. The state budget of this year allocates a total of MVR 24.2 million for political parties.
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