Daily Times

On Tuesday, the committee set up to investigate the PTI’s finances submitted its findings to the Pakistan Election Commission. The chief election commissioner ordered all parties to receive copies of the findings, Daily Times reported.

The matter of PTI foreign funding was considered by a three-member bench of Pakistan’s Election Commission, led by Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Sikandar Sultan Raja.

Petitioner Akbar S Babar came before the panel, as did PTI leaders Asad Umar and Amir Kiyani, as well as the party’s lawyer Shah Khawar.

The commission received the scrutiny committee’s report.

Petitioner Akbar S Babar’s lawyer Hassan asked the commission to provide them the report of the scrutiny committee when it would become a record of the commission. He insisted to see the report and the ancillary material.

TI lawyer Shah Khawar, on the other hand, disputed the report, claiming that it was exclusively for the parties involved. He asked the commission to hold off on making the report public until they could see it and comment on it.

“Once we will submit our explanation, then the commission can make the scrutiny committee report public. Till then the commission is requested to make the report confidential,” Khawar added.

While talking to media after the ECP hearing, petitioner Akbar S Babar said that the foreign funding case was the case of Pakistan’s survival. He alleged that the PTI concealed details of 28 bank accounts and revealed only 6 international bank accounts. He claimed that the party did not present the record of even a single bank account. He wondered if the scrutiny committee failed after 29 months, was it logical to let it work!

On the other hand, talking to media outside the ECP building, PTI Planning and Development Minister maintained  that the party had collected funds in a most transparent manner. He stated that standard of justice should be same for everyone.

“We have cooperated with the election commission. A committee has also been formed to scrutinize the accounts of Pakistan People’s Party and Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz),” he added.

Meanwhile, PML-N Secretary General Ahsan Iqbal, speaking to the media outside the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) building, said that his party has not hidden a single bank account from the ECP (ECP).

The foreign funding issue, on the other hand, he claimed, had revealed the Pakistan Tehreek-i-(PTI) Insaf’s much-touted ‘transparency.’

He further said that Prime Minister Imran Khan employed delaying tactics so that the case could be prolonged and the truth could be prevented from coming out. “Imran Khan Niazi has looted people by disguising himself as an ‘honest’ person. He patronized the sugar, flour, furnace oil, stock market and foreign currency mafias,” he alleged.

Ahsan went on to add that if the PTI was so sure that there was nothing wrong with the funds the party had received, then why it was requesting the election commission not to make the scrutiny committee’s report public.

The PML-N leader was of the view that the ruling party had committed the ‘fraud’ which had no parallel in the country’s entire history. “The request filed by the PTI against the PML-N in the ECP, seeking declaration of the latter’s bank accounts, is akin to those ‘cross FIRs’ which are normally registered in our villages by murderers against the deceased’s families in order to hush up their crime,” he commented.

He added that the PTI had not supplied the electoral commission with any proof to back up its claims that the PML-N had hidden accounts or had received funding from “strange” sources.