ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has reactivated its ‘political finance wing’, which was initially set up three years ago to investigate the assets of political parties and elected representatives with a view to eliminating corruption in politics.

The brainchild of former ECP secretary Ishtiak Ahmad Khan, the wing failed to take off after a lone political analyst with a vague job description was assigned to head it without the deputation of supporting staff.

Sources in the commission said the former head was forced to resign earlier this year after being given several irrelevant assignments.

New head notified as commission moves to take up petitions against PTI, PML-N

Now, the ECP has handed over the task to its director for public relations, Altaf Ahmad. The grade 19 official has been given additional charge as director of the political finance wing for three months, or until a regular appointment is made against the vacancy.

The notification comes at a time when the ECP is seized with a number of important cases relating to corrupt practices. These include disqualification petitions filed against Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and other members of his family as well as PTI chief Imran Khan and party leader Jahangir Khan Tareen.

The foreign funding case against the PTI is also pending before the commission, where the party has been accused of obtaining funds from abroad, misappropriating these funds and concealing them in the statements of accounts submitted to the commission.

All the petitions against Prime Minister Sharif and others were filed after a massive leak of secret documents, called the Panama Papers, revealed the names of Pakistanis operating offshore companies. The prime minister’s daughter and sons were also named in the papers.

According to the law in vogue, political parties and elected representatives have to file returns of their income, expenditure and assets, but there is no mechanism to check the veracity of those statements. A proper mechanism to punish those filing bogus returns is also absent.

Any legislation to empower the ECP to scrutinise assets and probe their concealment appears to be difficult under the current circumstances, with both major parties (PTI and PML-N) having questioned the ECP’s jurisdiction in such matters.

But many believe the ECP is already empowered to take all the steps needed to guard against corrupt practices and hold free, fair and just elections.

A senior ECP official referred to the Supreme Court judgement in the Workers Party Pakistan case in 2012. According to the judgement, the ECP is empowered to check not just illegal actions relating to the election (including violations of limits set for campaign finances) or corrupt practices (such as bribery), but is also empowered to review all election activities, including corner and public meetings as well as the use of loudspeakers.

Moreover, the official said, a careful reading of Article 218(3) of the Constitution shows that the clause gives wide-ranging powers to the ECP to check all sorts of corrupt practices and it was for the commission to decide on how to proceed.

The article in question reads: “It shall be the duty of the Election Commission to organise and conduct the election and to make such arrangements as are necessary to ensure that the election is conducted honestly, justly, fairly and in accordance with law, and the corrupt practices are guarded against.”

Talking about the scrutiny of parties’ statements of accounts, he said the ECP had already ruled that it had the jurisdiction to do so in PTI’s foreign funding case, as the power is clearly defined in the Political Parties Order of 2002.

Published in Dawn, October 3rd, 2016