Has ECP ‘exposed’ PTI’s foreign funding?

he Election Commission of Pakistan’s (ECP) Scrutiny Committee Report on Foreign Funding has vindicated our stance that Prime Minister Imran Khan is a stooge of the world powers.

The people of Pakistan should be told how people and organizations from the East and West funded the PTI and what objectives they achieved. The national institutions should think seriously about the threats facing national security. The report from the scrutiny committee of foreign funding case is an eye opener for all of us. Imran Khan hid these 53 accounts from the ECP whereby several suspected institutions and persons were funding the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). The indications given in the report about embezzlement in this funding identify highly dangerous tendencies.

Prime Minister Imran Khan is set to serve the interests of the foreign forces which provided heavy funding to his party until it came into power in 2018 through mass rigging made possible by a technical failure called the RTS [Result Transmission System of the ECP].

Inordinate delay in dealing with this case gave rise to several doubts earlier. Now the investigation which has been made in depth has proved that the allegations leveled by Akbar S Babar [a disgruntled member of the PTI] were correct.

We are convinced of the patriotism and steadfastness of Babar who discharged his obligation towards his loyalty to the country and has guided the PTI workers diligently.

Imran Khan’s three and half years tenure left disastrous implications for the future of the nation. Let me tell you very clearly, the PTI has been fully exposed in foreign funding case and today it has been proved that Imran Khan’s entire family comprises thieves. It is strange really. Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz  supreme leader and former prime minister Mian Nawaz Sharif was disqualified by the Supreme Court of Pakistan for not taking salary from his son’s company.

Today when it has been confirmed that Imran Khan’s corruption during the last three and a half years was huge, why should he not face disqualification? The politics of calling names, abusing political rivals was introduced by Imran Khan and the PTI and it is now getting a taste of its own medicine. It is proved that this man is incompetent and came to power using unfair non-democratic means.

I have been saying this since 2011-2012. It has been proved now that what is his party’s agenda and the foreign forces are behind him. Imran is “an agent of Jews” who received funds from Israel and India.

“ECP’s report confirmed PTI received funds from foreign nationals”

Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, PML-n leader

e were expecting the apex court and the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to take action against the PTI on the basis of the foreign funding report which has confirmed that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had received funds from foreign nationals and companies, concealed dozens of its bank accounts and embezzled Rs 310 million over a four-year period –  between 2009 and 2013. We expect from the ECP and the Supreme Court (SC), which had previously used its suo moto powers, that they will take notice of this report. We hope that the SC will take a suo moto notice. If the SC can act as a trial court, can send a government packing and disqualify a prime minister for lifetime for not receiving a meager amount as salary on the basis of an Iqama (work permit), then can’t the same court grill a prime minister who has been embezzling millions of rupees and is not ready to provide record of the party funds?

It is the responsibility of the SC and the ECP to hold these people accountable. There is a need to launch a major investigation.  According to the report, $2.1 million was transferred into the PTI accounts from a cricket club in Dubai. Similarly, Prime Minister Imran Khan owned two companies registered in the US, the details of which the ECP had obtained from the website of the US Department of Justice. Where did the money come from and who sent it? There was no response from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf in the foreign funding case. There is evidence of Akbar S Babar’s statement, in which he had said that PTI’s party accounts are not shared with any official. The PTI did not provide any record to the Election Commission of Pakistan. The party had wasted three years while changing its counsel. Let me remind you that a scrutiny committee was formed on the orders of the Supreme Court which started the probe.

The Imran Khan led PTI government deliberately tried to force the ECP to release the findings. The PTI did not present any record or details of its funding to the ECP.

It is the electoral body that was formed by consulting the State Bank of Pakistan. The ruling party tried different tactics to not present proof of their funding to the commission. The ECP report only provides the details of the source of funding of the five years. I would again say that no document was presented by the PTI before ECP. But as PML-N President Shehbaz Sharif has said in his tweet that, “Truth has a strange way of exposing people. The Scrutiny Committee’s report is a damning indictment of Imran Khan. The PTI has been running away from foreign funding cases for the last seven years and now we know why. The facade of “Sadiq aur Ameen” has been shredded into pieces.” Let me remind him (Imran Khan) once again that it is his own party’s senior leader Akbar S Babar who had filed the foreign funding case.

“PTI is vindicated in foreign funding case”

Fawad Chaudhry, PTI leader

he allegations against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) of receiving foreign funding is absolute rubbish. In fact, PTI is the only political party in the country that has developed a legal, detailed and elaborate system for funding and our activists and workers from across the globe fund the party, with contributions starting from as low as one dollar.

But the other parties had no such system as they were patronised by some ‘feudal lords’ or ‘businessmen’, who gave them funds which were in fact used to “run the domestic affairs of their leadership”. As far as the sum of Rs 310 million is concerned, which the media reports claim that PTI had hidden from the Election Commission of Pakistan – it is in fact a single transaction counted twice and we would take up the matter with the electoral body. There were two relevant transactions of Rs 150 million and Rs 160 million which had been duplicated and therefore counted twice by the committee.

The Rs160 million transaction was counted twice as we received the money in the central account and then transferred it to another. That’s why there was duplicity in the scrutiny committee report.

Similarly, Rs 150 million from the center to the provinces from a PTI subsidiary was also counted twice. So, we would present these facts before the ECP during the arguments in the case. It is absolutely wrong that the PTI had not declared 53 accounts, the PTI only had 26 of them and eight of them were inactive. Only eight of these accounts are active with transactions taking place in them. Of the remaining 10 accounts, the PTI had dissociated with four of them while the remaining six were used as subsidiary accounts. The welfare wing of the party had its separate account as it was listed as a separate entity.

Only 26 accounts of the PTI were mentioned on page number 84 of the report and the figure of 56 did not emerge anywhere in it. The report of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), which the scrutiny committee had submitted to ECP, was prepared during the PML-N’s tenure.

The same report was used as the basis for the PTI foreign funding case before the ECP by the scrutiny committee. The ECP should also conduct a scrutiny of the accounts of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) since it is important to have a comparison on the accounts of PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif as well as the accounts of PPP.

Apart from this, it would be better if ECP makes the report public. We can’t make the report public, the ECP has to do it. And perhaps they should because the report missing from the public domain perpetuates fake news. The ECP should either ensure that the contents of the report should not make it to the media, or if it does then correct information is released.