ECP gives PTI last chance to produce financial record
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) yet again failed to produce the financial record, as ordered by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) since April 01, 2015, while the petitioner in the PTI foreign funding case urged the electoral body to order for production of bank statements and related documents by the State Bank of Pakistan.
The PTI has been playing dilly-dallying tactics since April 01, 2015 though the Election Commission had issued written orders for submission of the party funds record, as sought by the petitioner and founding member of the party Akbar S Babar. He had filed the case way back in November 2014, alleging corruption and irregularities in handling of the funds.
Though, the PTI had given repeated commitments to the Election Commission, yet it failed to comply with the orders and instead filed an application for adjournment of the case, contending it had not received the detailed ECP order of May 08, 2017, wherein the five-member bench had declared its jurisdiction regarding the case.
Babar himself pleaded before the ECP bench to note the deliberate and by choice refusal of PTI to comply with the Election Commission orders. He urged the chief election commissioner that the bench might exercise its constitutional powers and order the State Bank of Pakistan to produce the bank statements and other record, demanded by him in the case.
He emphasised that the related record was critical to the merits of the case. However, the chief election commissioner gave the last chance to the PTI to produce the record in line with the Election Commission’s order by the next hearing, fixed for May 30.
In a related development, PTI Chairman Imran Khan again failed to file a reply to the contempt petition filed by Babar for his alleged remarks against the Election Commission. Yet again, he changed his lawyer, who appeared before the Election Commission and sought time to prepare and submit the reply.
Talking to media persons outside the Election Commission, Babar again challenged to share the related funding record of Imran with the Election Commission, who kept on talking about fairness and transparency but was himself running away from submitting before the electoral body.
He asserted that if Imran failed to produce the accounts details, then he would present the evidence before the nation. He added the Election Commission had asked the PTI to submit all the related details by the next hearing of the party funding case.
Babar pointed out that while Imran always talked against nepotism and cronyism, but he himself appointed a close friend as a director in the Bank of Khyber, whose account was used to purchase his Bani Gala property. The bank, he claimed, was mired in corruption and mismanagement.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Spokesperson Naeemul Haq apologised to the prime minister's former adviser on foreign affairs, Tariq Fatemi, for an earlier tweet in which the former insinuated that Fatemi had not really been removed from his post.
Talking to journalists, Haq, who is the PTI Chairman Imran Khan's chief of staff, said his tweet was based on wrong information. He apologised to the former adviser, saying that that Fatemi was a 'very senior diplomat'. Haq had tweeted a picture on Tuesday, saying: "Nawaz continues to deceive the nation. Fatemi accompanying him in China. So his being relieved of his duties was a lie. What a farce."
The PTI leader acknowledged that the party lawmaker Shireen Mazari had also tweeted on the matter, and that, the number two in the party, Shah Mehmood Qureshi even raised the issue on the floor of the National Assembly. Haq said with a smile on his face that they were collectively misinformed. It is pertinent that the photograph that had outraged them, in fact, been taken in the past.