Imran Khan’s party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) provided “false information” regarding the party’s funding to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and hid funds worth millions of rupees.
The report of an ECP scrutiny committee probing the party’s funds was revealed on Tuesday. It said that the State Bank of Pakistan’s (SBP) statement revealed that the party had received Rs 1.64 billion in funding, reported Geo News. According to the report, the party did not disclose funding worth more than Rs 310 million to the ECP.
The scrutiny committee was formed in 2019 to audit foreign funding received by the PTI. The case began in 2014 when the party’s founding member, Akbar S Babar, filed it.
Babar alleged that the PTI received funding from illegal sources and that the party was also involved in money laundering, according to Dawn.
Today, in a Twitter post, Babar thanked Allah, saying he stands “vindicated”.
The report lays bare the contradictions in details provided by the PTI to the ECP and actual figures, reported Geo News.
According to data provided to the committee by the SBP, PTI has 26 bank accounts.
From 2008 to 2013, PTI disclosed funds worth Rs 1.33 billion to the ECP, whereas a report by the SBP shows the actual amount to be Rs 1.64 billion, the report said.
PTI failed to disclose details of three banks in the documentation provided to the ECP, it added. It stated that around 1,414 companies in Pakistan, 47 foreign companies, and 119 potential companies provided funds to PTI, reported Geo News.
PTI received USD 2.3448 million in funding from the US, but the scrutiny committee couldn’t obtain access to the party’s US bank accounts, the report said. Besides the US, the PTI obtained funds from Dubai, the UK, Europe, Denmark, Japan, Canada, Australia, and several other countries.
Due to a lack of information, the committee’s report said that it cannot comment on the source of the funding from any of the countries, reported Geo News.
The firm that audited the PTI’s accounts based their reports on the same information for five years, the report noted, adding that the PTI changed the firm in the last year but the report’s contents remained the same.
The committee sent the PTI a questionnaire on the funding received from the US and other countries but obtained no clear response, the report added.
(With Inputs from IANS & ANI)