Home Latest News PTI Declares 11 Accounts of Party Leaders Illegal: Babar

PTI Declares 11 Accounts of Party Leaders Illegal: Babar

by Staff Report

Petitioner Akbar. S. Babar. Twitter

Founding member of ruling party maintains foreign funding case is a ‘mega scandal’ and calls for resignations of senior leaders whose accounts were declared ‘illegal’

Founding member of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Akbar S. Babar on Thursday alleged that the party has admitted during the ongoing foreign funding case that 11 accounts belonging to senior leaders were “illegal.”

Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, he said that the foreign funding case—in which he is a petitioner—has been pending for eight years, with four of those spent to examine the financial data by a scrutiny committee designated by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). “The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP)’s records show that the PTI has disassociated itself from 11 accounts containing Rs. 23 million, claiming they are illegal,” he added.

The former PTI stalwart claimed that the PTI had submitted that accounts belonging to National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser; Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Governor Shah Farman; Sindh Governor Imran Ismail and Mian Mahmood Rashid and Ahmed Rashid were illegal. Declaring these accounts illegal, he stressed, “means the ruling party mistrusts its own people.”

Urging the ECP to take notice of this, he said the 11 people whose accounts the party had declared illegal should resign from office immediately.

Maintaining that the foreign funding case was a “mega scandal,” Babar emphasized that the “truth” was finally coming out after eight years.

On March 15, the PTI had submitted written replies to the ECP in response to queries raised by the scrutiny committee, declaring as “unauthorized” 11 bank accounts that were opened and operated by key party leaders. According to the reply, the “illegal” accounts received Rs. 23.22 million from the PTI’s central accounts, adding that an additional Rs. 57 million was deposited in them from local sources that were not accounted for with the Central Accounts.

According to the party, it initiated “an appropriate and required exercise” upon learning of the accounts, adding that it had been “unaware” of them until the SBP had disclosed their details. Claiming that the party had carried out a detailed analysis and review of all information and bank statements and identified the individuals who opened the accounts, it said that the 11 accounts were operated by individuals who were not authorized by the competent authority and were being operated without the knowledge of the party’s finance department.

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