Foreign funding cases: ECP urged to announce verdicts for all parties simultaneously

LAHORE: Deputy Secretary Information Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Farrukh Habib has urged the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to announce verdicts of PTI, PPP, and PML-N’s foreign funding cases simultaneously.

He was holding a press conference in backdrop of a report of Financial Times revealing that Arif Naqvi of Abraaj Group had transferred three installments of foreign funds directly to PTI in 2013, adding up to a total of $2.12 million.

Farrukh said all the records related to those transactions were available, adding there was no case against Naqvi or his Abraaj Group in 2012. According to him, Naqvi had donated £20 million to PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif and his brother, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif as a bribe. Naqvi had also hosted a dinner for Nawaz Sharif, he added, and demanded that the PML-N should respond to those claims as well.

Habib said a media trial was being conducted against the party every now and then related to foreign funding. The case against the PTI was not related to foreign funding, rather it was of prohibited funding, he said.

According to him, foreign funds are used for working against an incumbent government but that’s not the case here. He said his party laid the foundation of funding in Pakistan.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022