Foreign funding: PTI not on the same page on financial details

Party leaders’ statements on filing accounts to ECP cause controversy


Qamar Zaman November 23, 2015
Party leaders’ statements on filing accounts to ECP cause controversy. PHOTO: FILE

ISLAMABAD:


The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) back-to-back statements on the party’s stand regarding submission of its accounts details to the poll supervisory body apparently seem to reflect that its representatives are not on the same page.


“As per legal requirement, every political party has to submit its audited accounts to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). The PTI has always fulfilled this requirement in letter and spirit,” PTI Secretary Finance Sardar Azhar Tariq told The Express Tribune on Sunday.

The statement came a day after PTI Information Secretary Naeemul Haq had said that the party would not share details of its declared and undeclared bank accounts with the election authorities while putting a question mark on the commission’s “impartiality”.

The poll supervisory body had issued a written order on the PTI’s foreign funding case asking its response to the production demand of all declared and undeclared bank accounts and sources of funds. The matter is likely to be reviewed on the next hearing date set for December 3.

Commenting on the ECP decision, Tariq said that the order is bad in law because PTI is the only party to have already submitted details of its foreign and local funding to the commission.

Besides, he added: “We are discussing with our legal team whether the ECP has the jurisdiction to act as the National Accountability Bureau on a third party application.”



Sources revealed to The Express Tribune that the PTI is mulling to engage Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) former president Senator Aitzaz Ahsan to represent the party before the ECP.

In addition, the party is also considering filing a petition in the Islamabad High Court to stay the proceedings of the ECP in a bid to avoid production of bank statements that would reveal concealment and illegal sources of foreign funding, they added.

However, the PTI secretary finance said that the party has no plan to replace former Attorney General Anwer Mansoor Khan, adding that the PTI will avail all legal options to defend itself in financial irregularities case before the ECP.

The case of alleged illegal foreign funding was filed in November last year by Akbar S Babar, estranged PTI founding member who developed differences with party chief Imran Khan over internal corruption and alleged violations of laws to maintain its accounts.

The petitioner had sought account details of money transferred from abroad including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and United Arab Emirates to PTI accounts or to accounts of the party’s employees since July 2010 to date.

The estranged member said in case of PTI’s defiance, the ECP has all the powers to summon a federal agency to produce the bank statements that would prove beyond any shadow of doubt gross concealment of funds received from illegal foreign sources.

“The PTI’s demand of resignation of the ECP members is only meant to disrupt the proceedings of the case to gain time as its lawyers never questioned the credibility of the court during hearings for the last one year,” he also said.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 23rd,  2015.

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