{"id":17015,"date":"2022-08-02T15:08:17","date_gmt":"2022-08-02T15:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/undergroundnews.co.uk\/?p=17015"},"modified":"2022-08-02T15:08:19","modified_gmt":"2022-08-02T15:08:19","slug":"ptis-prohibited-funding-case-key-highlights-from-the-ecp-ruling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/undergroundnews.co.uk\/?p=17015&lang=en","title":{"rendered":"PTI\u2019s prohibited funding case: Key highlights from the ECP ruling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Mishaal Arshad C.M Underground News<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After nearly eight years, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has announced its ruling into the high-profile case of the PTI receiving funds from prohibited sources, under the election law in Pakistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As per the 68-page order, the commission states that former prime minister Imran Khan\u2019s PTI did indeed receive funding from foreign companies and individuals, which it hid. For now, the ECP has issued a show-cause notice to the party to explain why the prohibited funds should not be confiscated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What exactly does the order say? Here are key highlights from the ECP judgement:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Funds amounting to $$2,121,500 were transferred from a Dubai-based company by businessman, Arif Naqvi, into PTI\u2019s account. The PTI \u201cknowingly received and accepted donations from a company which was being operated by a business tycoon who was involved in criminal fraud,\u201d states the Commission, adding that it gave the party \u201cample time\u201d, from 2018 to 2021, to make a disclosure.<\/li><li>The ECP also states that funds were also sent from Dubai to a PTI account by someone whose identity both Arif Naqvi and PTI did not disclose.<\/li><li>Two companies were registered in the USA by the PTI, which collected $2,525,500 but did not differentiate between \u201cindividuals\u201d and \u201centities\u201d and foreign nationals. The companies received donations from 351 companies and 34 foreign nationals. \u201cThe PTI agents did not follow the Pakistani laws, which permit receiving funds from Pakistan citizens and not foreign nationals,\u201d writes the ECP. It also notes that since no database of the nationality of donors was provided by the PTI, the ECP\u2019s scrutiny committee was forced to identify the list of donors as those who \u201cappear to be Pakistani\u201d and those who do not.<\/li><li>PTI had a corporation registered in Canada but did not disclose to the ECP where the money was being collected from, taking shelter in Canada\u2019s privacy laws. By not making a full disclosure the PTI committed acts of \u201cwillful concealment, misstatement and misrepresentation of facts\u201d, states the ECP. It further adds that funds transferred by a Canada-based corporation, therefore a foreign company, is prohibited under the Political Parties Order 2002.<\/li><li>Similar companies were operated by the PTI in the UK and Australia which transferred funds into PTI accounts. Again the law does not permit foreign-registered companies to channel funds to local political parties.<\/li><li>PTI received and accepted donations from 34 foreign nationals to the tune of $35,651<\/li><li>PTI disowned the ownership of 13 bank accounts. But the State Bank of Pakistan\u2019s record shows that the accounts were opened in the name of the PTI. In fact some of the accounts were opened by PTI\u2019s Mehmood ur Rasheed, Mian Muhammad Farooq (PTI\u2019s general secretary), Asad Qaiser, Imran Ismail, Seema Zia, (PTI\u2019s women wing) and Qasim Khan Suri. Despite PTI disowning these accounts money was being transferred into the bank accounts. \u201cThe respondent was in full knowledge and the stance of denying the accounts as \u2018unknown\u2019 cannot be entertained,\u201d stated the ECP. It adds that the PTI failed to disclose these accounts which were being operated by the \u201csenior leadership of the party\u201d.<\/li><li>PTI chairman Imran Khan submitted Form 1 to certify that the party was operating as per Pakistani statues, but on the basis of record available before the ECP it was \u201cconstrained to hold that Mr Imran Khan failed to discharge his obligations under the Pakistani statutes\u201d and that the submissions filed by him were \u201cgrossly inaccurate and wrong\u201d.<\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mishaal Arshad C.M Underground News After nearly eight years, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has announced its&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17019,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_appearance_grid":"","csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,71,38],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17015","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-important-news","8":"category-latest-news","9":"category-pakistan","10":"cs-entry","11":"cs-video-wrap"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/undergroundnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/undergroundnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/undergroundnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/undergroundnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/undergroundnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17015"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/undergroundnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17020,"href":"https:\/\/undergroundnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17015\/revisions\/17020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/undergroundnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/undergroundnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/undergroundnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/undergroundnews.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}