Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Farrukh Habib on Wednesday appealed to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to reconstitute the scrutiny committee so that the process of scrutiny of Pakistan People’s Party and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s accounts could be completed.
Talking to the media persons here, he asked the ECP to write a letter to the State Bank of Pakistan to get data of bank accounts of all political parties registered with the commission.
He said that the PML-N wanted to flee in foreign funding case, as it was opposing scrutiny of its accounts.
Farrukh said that PTI has accounted for its donations and was ready for further scrutiny. The audit of the accounts of the PPP and PML- N should also be completed at the earliest, he demanded.
Read more: Foreign Funding Case: Is PTI out of troubled waters?
The minister said that the Election Commission’s scrutiny committee should complete its work at the earliest.
He said that Maryam Safdar, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, and Maulana Fazalur Rehman used to make wrong claims about foreign funding of the PTI, but nothing was found in the report of the scrutiny committee against PTI.
Checking of accounts of political parties in Pakistan was a welcome step and there should be transparency in the accounts of political parties, he remarked.
LIVE #APPNews : Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Farrukh Habib talks to media #Islamabad @FarrukhHabibISF https://t.co/uWWnBafvyC
— APP 🇵🇰 (@appcsocialmedia) January 19, 2022
ECP report on PTI foreign funding case
A report of an ECP scrutiny committee probing the party’s funds revealed that the ruling PTI hid funds worth millions of rupees from ECP. The report stated that the PTI provided “false information” regarding the party’s funding to the ECP.
It said that SBP’s bank statement revealed that the party had received Rs1.64 billion in funding. According to the report, the party did not disclose funding worth more than Rs310 million to the ECP.
According to data provided to the committee by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), PTI has 26 bank accounts. From 2008 to 2013, PTI disclosed funds worth Rs1.33 billion to the ECP, whereas a report by the SBP shows the actual amount to be Rs1.64bn, the report said. PTI failed to disclose details of three banks in documentation provided to the ECP, it added.
Courtesy: APP with additional input by GVS