ECP hands over PTI foreign funding record to petitioner

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Monday decided to provide volume eight of the confidential record of PTI foreign funding to petitioner Akbar S. Babar.

The volume, containing record pertaining to the party’s foreign funding, including the scrutiny committee’s report, will surface for the first time.

Hearing the PTI foreign funding case on Jan 18, the ECP had reversed the orders of the scrutiny committee to keep secret some portions of its report, including certified PTI documents and bank statements acquired through the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).

A formal written request for access to all enclosures of the scrutiny committee report addressed to the Deputy Director of Law, ECP, had been filed on behalf of the petitioner and PTI’s founding member Akbar S. Babar on Jan 20.

Addressing the media on Monday, the Director General (Law) of the ECP, Muhammad Arshad, who also heads the scrutiny committee, said that the media will not be allowed to take pictures of the record.

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Sources privy to the development said that the central bank had collected the record from banks and other financial institutions as per the directives of the election commission.

The ECP scrutiny committee had kept the record secret as the PTI had objected to sharing the documents with Akbar S. Babar, a PTI founding member and the petitioner in the case.

“All documents of the foreign funding case are part of the public record and plea to keep them secret is not acceptable,” the ECP said.

The PTI foreign funding case was in pending for the last seven years.

The scrutiny committee had earlier given access of 55 hours to petitioner Akbar S. Babar to a limited portion of the record. That record was audited by two impartial financial experts, according to sources.