PTI Founders Group asks Imran to present himself for accountability; issues ‘black paper’ on ‘wrongdoings’ of KP govt
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Founders Group leader, Akbar S Babar, on Sunday said thieves cannot conduct accountability of anyone.
He said this at the PTI Founders Group first national consultative conference. Erstwhile close aide of Imran, Akbar S Babar was the moving spirit behind the event, held on the heels of Imran Khan’s rally in Lahore.
The group consists of angry party leaders and workers, who have either gone into hibernation due to the party’s policies or wanted a platform to push for the revival of the PTI on its original path.
They include Imran’s close relative, Saeedullah Khan Niazi, and many former office-bearers at central and provincial level.The group asked the PTI Chairman Imran Khan to present himself for accountability, for he had turned the party into another status quo force, derailing from the PTI’s basic principles, which included accountability. Also its constitution remained in abeyance and dictatorship prevailed.
The conference acknowledged the services of Tasnim Noorani as the head of the PTI election commission along with other members and demanded their immediate restoration to hold honest intra-party elections. It also acknowledged the services of Justice Wajihuddin Ahmed for his resolute stand against the corrupt and rejected his suspension of party membership.
The Founders Group demanded full implementation of all PTI election tribunal orders including expulsion of Jehangir Khan Tareen, Pervaiz Khattak, Aleem Khan and Nadir Leghari from the party on serious corruption charges.
Babar issued a ‘black paper’ on wrongdoings involving the PTI leadership and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government. He also produced a copy of the letter Imran had written to Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak, reprimanding him for changing the Ehtesab law so that corruption of his ministers could be hidden and they be protected. He said the Ehtesab Commission in the province had become a joke.
The conference unanimously declared that Imran Khan as chairman of the party has, prima facie, failed to enforce fundamental principles of transparency, accountability, and merit in the party. The conference demanded that in the larger interest of the party and to preserve and promote its founding ideology of change, he should offer himself for full accountability before an independent accountability commission to be set up within the party.
The group leaders deliberated on how and why the PTI lost its direction and what would it take to revive the fast fading hopes of millions that flocked to the PTI’s call of ‘change’. There was a consensus that as the PTI’s popularity grew, so did the urge of ‘rental politicians’ to cash its political capital.
The conference regretted that there are few instances in political history that a party at its populist peak was commandeered by its ‘founder-in-chief’ into the hands of political pirates whose morality compass rotates with self-interests.The conference was convinced that a party on a high moral pedestal of transparency and accountability should have travelled the extra mile to practice what it had preached.
Instead, despite mountains of evidence, it has failed to hold its party and public office holders accountable for alleged massive corruption. Instead of setting examples of the corrupt, the PTI has made examples of those trying to hold the corrupt accountable.
Therefore, after detailed deliberations to the way forward to make the PTI into fully transparent and accountable organisation, the participants of the conference unanimously approved the declaration and future course of action.
In the absence of office bearers elected through credible intra-party elections, the conference rejected appointments of all office bearers and considers their appointments extra constitutional and devoid of any legal authority.
The conference rejected dictatorship that prevails in the party and demanded restoration of the PTI constitution to transform the party into a democratic institution. To save the party from serious legal and political implications, the conference demanded that the PTI should offer the Election Commission of Pakistan to conduct a detailed forensic audit of its accounts to establish the scale and scope of the alleged corruption and violation of relevant laws and hold the guilty accountable according to law.
The conference demanded the immediate resignation of KP CM and all PTI ministers against whom corruption investigations were ongoing at the time of the resignation of former DG Ehtesab Commission Lt Gen (retd) Hamid Khan.
