Missed deadline: PTI overwhelmed by reams of data

Senior official says no sinister motive behind the delay in filing financial data before ECP.

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Saturday said it had missed the August 29 deadline of sharing its accounts with the Election Commission of Pakistan because its officials were bogged down by an “extraordinary amount of information and financial details”.

PTI officials insisted that there wasn’t any sinister motive behind the move. “Due to the party’s intraparty and post-May general elections, PTI staff and its auditors have had to deal with extraordinary amount of information and financial details,” the party said in a statement, a copy of which was sent to The Express Tribune.

“There was no dark design behind the slight delay in PTI submitting its annual financial statement to the ECP,” the statement added.

On Thursday, a total of 45 political parties, including all mainstream groups, submitted details of their assets. PTI was conspicuous by its absence.



“Every political party has to submit to the election commission within 60 days from the close of each financial year, a consolidated statement of accounts of the party, duly audited by a chartered accountant,” states Article 13 of the Political Parties Order, 2002.

PTI always stood by its commitment to transparency as its leadership had voluntarily placed their assets on the party’s website,” a senior leader of PTI said.

The reason for the delay in submission of PTI’s annual returns is due to the exceptional large work required this year as it has been a busy year for PTI unlike other political parties, she explained.

PTI conducted intraparty elections followed almost immediately by general elections and then the by-elections, added the statement. Other political parties have never conducted intra party elections at all levels of their membership, the statement revealed.

The account continued to state that PTI’s external auditors have already commenced their work and we are trying our best to meet the mandatory requirement of submission of Annual Accounts, although, the spread of details has taken time.



PTI’s external auditor Monee Ziauddin & Co falls in Category A. That is an audit firm on the panel of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and rated by The Institute of Chartered Accountant of Pakistan.

The firm is also affiliated with BKR international, having representation in 75 countries with 135 locations with intense quality control procedures. So we are getting everything audited by a reputable audit firm with all the required professional credentials.

The PTI leader stated that the slight delay in submission of accounts to the ECP only means that PTI wants to ensure that every financial detail is scaled down for transparency.

To misconstrue the delay as a deliberate conspiracy to hide something is ridiculous, as PTI has a record of making its accounts transparent every year. “Our record speaks for itself,” she concluded.


Published in The Express Tribune, September 1^st, 2013.