Islamabad: Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has reserved judgment in PTI’s prohibited funding case.
A three-member bench of the ECP headed by Chief Election Commissioner Sikandar Sultan Raja heard the case.
The verdict was reserved after the completion of a briefing by the financial expert brought by PTI founding member Akbar S Babar.
ECP has now concluded the case after seven years of trial, which started in 2014, when Babar filed it. The date of the verdict will be announced is yet to be revealed.
During the hearing, the financial expert maintained that audit principles and standards have been ignored in PTI’s funds. He claimed that the donors were not third parties but companies created by the party leadership.
The CEC Sultan Raja thanked the parties for cooperating and providing details.”We have to restore the voters’ trust and strengthen the country democratically,” he said.
He said that the cases of other parties will also be concluded soon and the Commission will ensure that there is no discrimination.
The PTI hid funds worth millions of rupees from the ECP, the report of an ECP scrutiny committee probing the party’s funds had revealed on January 4.
The report stated that the PTI provided “false information” regarding the party’s funding to the ECP. It said that the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP’s) bank statement revealed that the party had received Rs1.64 billion in funding.
According to the report, the party did not disclose funding worth more than Rs310 million to the ECP.
The scrutiny committee was formed in 2019 to audit foreign funding received by the PTI.
