Foreign funds case: ECP to examine PTI’s accounts

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  • Four-member ECP bench decides not to share documents with petitioner
  • Babar says PTI’s funding details not contain money trail or funding history

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Monday decided to scrutinise documents submitted by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) regarding the party’s finances without sharing them with Akbar S Babar, a former PTI leader and petitioner in the case.

The petitioner filed a case before the ECP in 2014. The party avoided submitting the required documents for nearly two years for one reason or the other; first approaching the Supreme Court to challenge the commission’s jurisdiction in the matter and later, challenging the maintainability of the case before the high court.

After months of foot-dragging, the PTI finally submitted account statements and documents detailing the funding it received from foreign sources over the past seven years to the ECP on Sept 18 despite being given several ‘last warnings’ by the commission which went largely ignored to submit the required documents.

Babar’s lawyer insisted before the four-judge ECP bench, headed by Chief Election Commissioner Justice Sardar Mohammad Raza, that the PTI had not submitted the complete details of its finances. PTI’s lawyer Saqlain Haider maintained that all relevant financial details had been shared with the ECP.

The bench decided to scrutinise the PTI’s bank accounts, but said that the documents would not be shared with the petitioner. “The account details will not be provided to the petitioner unless the Islamabad High Court asks the ECP to share the information,” Justice Raza said.

Following the ECP hearing, Babar told media that the funding details submitted by the PTI do not contain any details of money trail or funding history. “I will give proof of all this. Not only have they tampered evidence but they are now changing records of companies in the US that were established for fundraising,” he said.

LETTER TO US ENVOY: He said that he was currently drafting a letter to the US ambassador, urging the authorities to take action against these companies. Babar also said that donors of the Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital have been documented as donors of the party. “Imran Khan’s disqualification is the logical conclusion of these cases,” he said.

The case was filed on Nov 14, 2014 by Babar, after he developed differences with the PTI chairman over internal corruption and abuse of laws governing political funding. The petitioner had alleged that nearly three million dollars in illegal foreign funds were collected through two offshore companies, registered under Imran’s signature, and that money was sent through illegal ‘hundi’ channels from the Middle East to accounts of the party employees.

2 COMMENTS

  1. For God’s sake the media should come out with the reality that we didn’t start with democracy.
    We have wasted Pakistan’s precious 70 years without a working political system.
    All political parties headed by cult personalities have no place in any system, much less in democracy.
    Does the Election Commissioner know that in a working democracy there are only two mainstream cult-free political
    parties. Here the Election Commission is a hoax.
    There is no rule of law in the country.
    More importantly there is fear of God in the whole nation.
    Religious parties are blot and a burden on the country.
    Imran Khan has caused losses in billions with his “Street Power.”
    Some people were sitting on a road. Prophet (saws) happened to pass thre. He removed them from there and said:
    “Keep the paths open for traffic.” The “Dherna culture” started by JI.
    We all need and want change to decency and normalcy, but do not know how to?

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