ISLAMABAD: The opp­o­sition Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has decided to set up a parallel fund to assist and provide relief to people in the wake of coronavirus outbreak and its spread in the country.

PPP secretary general Nayyar Bokhari on Thursday wrote a letter to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), informing it about the party’s plan to set up “PPP Corona Relief Fund Account” and sought exemption from the rules that make it binding upon the political parties to disclose the name of the donors.

The decision to set up the relief fund was made by the PPP two days after Prime Minister Imran Khan announced setting up of a government relief fund to handle the situation after the coronavirus spread in the country.

In his letter to ECP secretary Zaffar Iqbal, Mr Bokhari has written that the “account will be used exclusively for Covid-19 relief activities and the aggregate receipt and expenses will be disclosed in the party declaration to the ECP for the relevant year”.

“As the donations are expected to be received from length and breadth of the country as well as Pakistani diaspora living overseas, and may not be limited to party members and supporters only, it may not be possible to comply with the Election Commission rules about keeping particulars of the donors for this particular account,” Mr Bokhari wrote in the letter, a copy of which is available with Dawn.

It says that “the prime minister has also opened a relief donation account where no questions will be asked from donors”.

Published in Dawn, April 3rd, 2020