Gov't told to explain election cost ballooning 100 pct

The government has been asked to explain the doubling in the cost of running the 13th general election from RM200 million in 2008 to RM400 million.

“This expenditure of as much as RM400 million must be questioned thoroughly, because this involves a 100 percent increase from the allocation in the 12th general election in 2008.

“Why is it in a period of five years, the spending for the general election can balloon 10 percent even though the number of voters have only increased 20 percent?” asked Seremban MP Anthony Loke (right) in a statement from Parliament.

He said the expense covering 222 parliamentary constituencies works out to an average of RM1.8 million per constituency, which he said was extremely large compared to the spending limit of candidates at RM200,000 each.

He was responding to Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Shahidan Kassim’s reply to his parliamentary question on June 27 on the GE13's expenditure breakdown.

[More to follow]