The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) is set to start scrutinising foreign funding received by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) next week.
According to the terms of reference (ToR) for the audit, finalised yesterday, a special committee will conduct the scrutiny of the party’s foreign funding in the presence of petitioner Akbar S Babar, the respondent PTI, and lawyers from both sides.
Besides the law ministry director general, who heads the committee, other members are Audit Defence Services director general Masood Akhtar Sherwanee and Air Force accounts controller Muhammad Faheem.
This is the first time that representatives of the defence establishment have been co-opted by the ECP to carry out the financial audit of a political party for alleged illegal foreign funding and other financial irregularities.
The ECP’s previous scrutiny committee, which was formed after the March 12 order, could not meet as both external members refused to participate.
“The committee shall conduct scrutiny of the party’s financial statements and other underlying accounting records for the last five years from the objected accounts i.e. 2009 to 2013 to find the defects and omissions in the disclosure of funds and their sources received from abroad,” according to the ToR.
“The committee shall assess and evaluate the credibility and reliability of the information provided by the complainant about the alleged foreign funding.
“The committee shall identify the prohibited funds in the light of allegations contained in the complaint in terms of Section 6 of the Political Parties Order of 2002, read with Rule 6 of Political Parties Rules, 2002, and the directions contained in the Supreme Court’s judgment passed on December 15, 2017, on a petition filed by Hanif Abbasi against Imran Khan,” it says.
The committee, under the ToR, will complete the scrutiny process within 30 days and submit its report to the commission.
Yesterday, the law ministry director general shared the ToR relating to the foreign funding case with the petitioner and his legal counsel, Badar Iqbal Chaudhry, along with the PTI representatives.
The special committee has been constituted by the ECP to audit allegations of PTI’s foreign funding from prohibited and illegal sources.
Speaking to the media, former PTI central vice-president Akbar S Babar said that almost three-and-a-half years after the foreign funding case was filed, there was light at the end of the tunnel.
He said the detailed scrutiny of PTI accounts would conclusively prove all his allegations and “lay bare before the people of Pakistan the massive scale on which PTI received illegal funding from prohibited sources”.
Babar expressed the hope that the PTI would allow the committee to complete its task within a month as ordered by the ECP.