Foreign funding case: PML-N, PPP deny receiving funds from abroad

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Monday denied receiving any kind of funds from abroad as Scrutiny Committee of Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) started re-examination of the record of both political parties in Foreign Funding case.

Last week, the Scrutiny Committee re-examined the record of the ruling party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI).

Sources in ECP told Business Recorder that unlike PTI, neither PML-N nor PPP submitted any fresh record in Foreign Funding case and denied altogether having received any funds from abroad.

The ECP had sought related record from all the three political parties and only PTI submitted its record of overseas donations while both PML-N and PPP denied having received any donations from outside Pakistan, sources said.

“Neither did our party receive any foreign funding nor do we have any hidden bank accounts,” Ahsan Iqbal told the media outside ECP. He said PTI was shying away from the proceedings of Foreign Funding case because ‘its lies and corruption were exposed’.

PTI’s Farrukh Habib said his party submitted the entire record of all the 40,000 overseas donors in the case. “But they (PML-N and PPP) failed to submit any record because they have no proof to justify their illegal money,” he said adding that ECP was yet to receive a concrete response from both opposition parties in the case.

On Friday, PTI moved the ECP to hold hearing of Foreign Funding case on daily basis. In this context, Farrukh Habib submitted his application to Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja seeking proceedings of Foreign Funding case daily.

Few days back, PTI said it submitted its entire record to the Scrutiny Committee in the Foreign Funding case.

The record including the details of donations from overseas Pakistanis including LCC (Life Cycle Costing) account, the names, addresses, computerised national identity card numbers and contact numbers of the overseas donors, the details of related bank transactions, relevant bank statements, and receipts of relevant financial activities were submitted by the PTI to the committee, according to an ECP official.

The three-member Scrutiny Committee is headed by ECP Director General (Law) Muhammad Arshad as its Chairman and includes DG (Audit) Defence Services Masood Akhtar Sherwani, and Controller Accounts Air Force Muhammad Faheem as its members.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021