PM 'welcomes' ECP audit of PTI's funding

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday said he welcomed the Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) scrutiny of the PTI’s funding through donations from overseas Pakistanis.

“The more our accounts are scrutinised the more factual clarity will emerge for [the] nation to see how [the] PTI is the only political party with proper donor base premised on proper political fundraising,” PM Imran wrote on Twitter. The premier's tweet came a day after a report by the ECP’s scrutiny committee – investigating into the foreign funding of the PTI –unearthed that the party had concealed several accounts and around Rs310 million between 2008 and 2013 from the electoral body.

He further said he “looked forward” to similar scrutiny from the electoral watchdog on the funding of the PPP and PML-N. According to the premier, this will allow citizens to see the “difference” between “proper” political funding and the “extortion of money from crony capitalists and vested interests in exchange for favours at nation's expense”.

Separately, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Farrukh Habib singled out the PPP for being an entity known for its “plunder and money laundering through fake accounts”.
In a tweet, he said PPP Chairman Bilawal Zardari should better address the question about 11 bank accounts kept secret by his party.

“No record of Rs35 crore [Rs350 million] has been provided,” he added. “Fake accounts and plunder is your identity,” he tweeted while lashing out at Bilawal for “hiding” the party’s multiple bank accounts from the ECP.

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Chiding Bilawal, he said those who earned money through legal means paid their full amount of tax.
The minister also shared a snapshot of a report compiled by the PTI’s chartered accountants and financial experts after scrutinising the PPP financial documents.

It apparently showed complete details of the bank accounts allegedly “kept secret” by the PPP.
The scrutiny committee formed by the ECP to probe the foreign funding case against the PTI had found irregularities in the audit reports submitted by the ruling party.

In its report submitted to the election watchdog on Tuesday, the committee had written: “as per the opinion of the Chartered Accountant Firms, the statement of Account fairly presents, in all material respects [sic], the cash receipt of PTI for each year mentioned in the table above [present in the report], on the basis of accounting described by the firm in its audit report.

However, during the course scrutiny, the committee observed deviations in figures as the same do not reconcile with the bank statements." It had further disclosed that the party had received $44,000 from 88 foreign donors during 2008 to 2013. The undisclosed accounts had been mentioned in a report by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). The scrutiny committee had also included its analysis of the bank accounts in the report.

According to the report, the PTI had disclosed only four of its 26 bank accounts. The SBP's bank statement showed that the PTI had received donations of Rs1.64 billion whereas it had only revealed an amount of Rs1.33 billion to the ECP.

Besides, no date had been mentioned on the PTI's audit report for the year 2012-13.
The body was also denied access to the PTI’s bank accounts in Canada and New Zealand.
According to the report, two bank accounts of PTI in 2008 and 2009 were not disclosed.

(With input from APP)