Prohibited Funding Case related to PML-N, PPP: ECP gives 10-day deadline to body to finalise report

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has finally given 10-day deadline to its Scrutiny Committee to finalise its report into Prohibited Funding Case related to Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), directing the probe panel to ensure that the said report is submitted to the poll body within the stipulated period “at all costs.”

These directives were issued in an ECP meeting headed by Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja on Monday.

In the past, the commission remained under massive public criticism for its failure to conclude the proceedings of Prohibited Funding Case related to PML-N and PPP—with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) being the only political party against which the ECP issued its verdict following the completion of Scrutiny Committee’s probe last year.

On August 2, last year, the ECP announced the much-hyped and long-awaited verdict in the Prohibited Funding Case (formerly known as Foreign Funding Case) — around eight years after the case landed in the electoral body in November 2014.

After the verdict was issued, the commission came under massive criticism from the PTI and several public circles over alleged discrepancies in the 70-page written order on Prohibited Funding Case.

Scores of overseas Pakistanis appeared on electronic and social media to lambaste the electoral body for naming them as foreign donors, who, according to ECP, sent illegal donations to PTI—in Prohibited Funding Case verdict.

The ECP’s order also contained details of funds received by the PTI from some 34 foreign nationals and 351 foreign-based companies but the funding record provided by ECP in the verdict was strongly disputed by the overseas Pakistanis with several companies that were shown as foreign donor entities were found to be belonging to overseas Pakistanis.

Apart from that, the ECP, in the Monday meeting, directed its legal team to brief the commission today (Tuesday) over the electoral body’s proposed course of action against the backdrop of digital population census results having been notified by the outgoing federal government last week.

Separately, the commission strongly denied the media reports that it decided to remove Chairman PTI and former prime minister Imran Khan from the party chairmanship in the wake of issuance of a court against him by a city court in the Toshakhana case.

In another meeting presided over by ECP Member Sindh Nisar Ahmed Durrani, the commission directed the Interior Ministry to ensure the fulfilment of requirements related to holding local government elections in Islamabad, and decided to further review this issue next week.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023