ISLAMABAD: Hailing the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for conducting the scrutiny of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf’s (PTI) funding, Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday called on the commission to carry out similar scrutiny of the funds of two mainstream opposition parties — Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

In a series of messages posted to his official Twitter account, the prime minister said the ruling party had received funds as donations from overseas Pakistanis.

“The more our accounts are scrutinised, the more factual clarity will emerge for the nation to see how PTI is the only political party with proper donor base premised on proper political fundraising,” the prime minister tweeted.

In another tweet, the premier said he looked forward to seeing similar ECP scrutiny of the funding of the other two major political parties, PPP and PML-N.

Imran says PTI is the only party with ‘donor base premised on political fundraising’

“This will allow the nation to see the difference between proper political fundraising and extortion of money from crony capitalists and vested interests in exchange for favours at the nation’s expense.”

His comments come a day after a damning report compiled by the scrutiny committee of the ECP noted that the ruling party had received funding from foreign nationals and companies, under-reported funds and concealed dozens of its bank accounts.

Following the revelation of the contents of the scrutiny committee’s report, opposition parties had termed it an “indictment” of PM Khan.

The report also mentions a refusal by the ruling party to divulge details of large transactions and the panel’s helplessness to get details of PTI’s foreign accounts and the funds collected abroad.

Mr Khan’s stance echoed the demands made by Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry and Minister of State Farrukh Habib after the report was made public on Tuesday, where both called for a scrutiny of PPP and PML-N’s funding as well.

He claimed that the PTI was the only political party in the country that had created a “legal, detailed and elaborate” system for funding as it has details of 40,000 donors who had provided donations to the party.

The state minister was of the opinion that since the funding cases of all three parties were of a similar nature, the scrutiny committees should carry out their Supreme Court’s mandated duties without any discrimination.

Published in Dawn, January 6th, 2022