PTI asked to reply to scrutiny panel report

Ruling party once again urges ECP to give it access to PML-N’s, PPP’s documents

ISLAMABAD:

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has asked the PTI to submit its reply to a report of its scrutiny committee which was formed to probe into the allegations of a disgruntled PTI leader Akbar S Babar that the ruling party received illegal funding from foreign sources.

A two-member bench of the ECP on Wednesday conducted a hearing on an application filed by State Minister for Information Farrukh Habib for giving the PTI auditors access to the foreign funding-related documents submitted by the PML-N and the PPP.

The counsel for Habib contended that the scrutiny committee had given Babar and his auditors access to the documents submitted by the PTI and now the PTI also had the right to get access to the documents submitted by the two major opposition parties.

The ECP Sindh Member Nisar Durrani said the polls supervisory authority also knows that law applies equally to all. He said the ECP will make a decision about giving the PTI access to the accounts details of the rival parties once it submits its reply to the scrutiny committee’s report.

The bench later adjourned the hearing of the application till August 16.

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Talking to the media after the hearing, the minister said the PML-N and the PPP have respectively 12 and 7 foreign accounts which they had not declared according to the record submitted to the ECP by the State Bank of Pakistan.

Disgruntled PTI leader Akbar S Babar on July 13 issued a fact-finding report allegedly prepared on the basis of the banking details provided by the PTI to the ECP scrutiny committee and claimed that the party received illegal foreign funding of Rs 2.2 billion in 2009-13.

According to the 4-page report, the documents and record provided by the PTI to the committee were incomplete and did not represent a true account of the party’s financial matter and yet the available data showed that the PTI received Rs2.2 billion through prohibited funding or funding without source.

It said even the documents provided by the PTI were not authentic or verifiable. “These documents are not original; photocopies are not verified, signed or stamped; bank statements are not on letterhead; donors’ lists are not signed, stamped or certified.”

The report said the ruling party did not provide the record and information sought by the scrutiny committee on April 25, 2018. It also did provide cash books, bank books, general ledger, trial balance and donation receipt books.

It claimed that the PTI also failed to submit “annual audited/unaudited accounts/financial statements of international companies and entities of the PTI. “Book statements of international companies/entities of the PTI have not been provided,” the report added.

The fact-finding report said the lists of donors provided by the PTI remained unverifiable due to the non-provision of information through which the donors can be identified and verified “including the CNIC numbers, addresses [and] contact details],” it added.

The report, however, listed eighteen different suspected transactions that took place between 2009 and 2013. These transactions – made by suspected or unknown donors – added up to over Rs 2.2 billion.

According to the report, there is a need to investigate the transfer of Rs 1.5m and Rs 7m respectively to the accounts of incumbent Minister for Planning Asad Umar and PTI leader Ayla Malik.