ISLAMABAD: The scrutiny committee of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) will take up the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) foreign funding case on Thursday (tomorrow).

The case was last heard by the panel on July 23 and had to be put off without any progress as the PTI once again failed to submit sources and other details of funds received that were ordered in the last meeting. Instead of submitting bank statements of its foreign bank accounts in the United States, Britain, Canada and elsewhere, the party demanded that the audit be limited to year 2012, excluding the audit of accounts of 2013. The terms of reference of the committee mandate it to audit PTI foreign funding for five years — from 2009 to 2013.

The committee has once again requested the PTI to submit sources and details of funds demanded by ECP since April 1, 2015 — successive orders the PTI continues to defy.

In the first week of June, the ECP directed the committee to submit a status report on the progress in scrutiny of the PTI’s foreign funding within a week. Later, in a detailed judgement, August 17 was set as a deadline for submission of a final report.

Published in Dawn, August 5th, 2020