Complaint filed against Imran in UK on fundraising

LONDON: President Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) of United Kingdom chapter Zubair Gull Thursday filed a complaint with two relevant bodies in the country showing suspicions about the usage of funds raised by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan apparently for the cancer hospital seeking thorough enquiry into the matter.

In his complaint filed with the Fund Raising Standards Board and the Charity Commission of UK the complainant raised the matter of grave concern involving PTI holding several fundraising events in the UK. He said Imran had in the past and on a regular basis held fundraising events in the UK and those had been publicised as fundraisers for the Shaukat Khanum Cancer Research Hospital in Pakistan. “However, what has never been publicised or made transparent was the application of the funds raised,” he said.

The PML-N UK president said the donors had never received any qualified or independent audit on how the money was distributed or spent.

“What is particularly disconcerting is lack of transparency between Imran’s political aspirations and charitable aims. Mr Khan is synonymous with both Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and Shaukat Khanum Cancer Research Hospital,” the complainant contended.

He maintained that the blurred lines between Imran Khan’s political ambitions and his involvement in charitable work invited suspicions that funds raised for ostensible charitable purposes in a society with a fragile democracy, the complainant observed.

He said the said contentions not only invited but also demanded a scrupulous enquiry by the appropriate regulators in this country into the activities of those engaged in fundraising lest it be said that the regulators had turned a blind eye to such matters and tacitly acquiesced to criminality and sedition.

Gull also provided the two bodies with a copy of Imran’s promotional literature for his fundraising events which clearly demonstrated their concerns about the opacity of his intentions and the lack of transparency about the application of the funds.

He opined that this event was clearly a political event and therefore the only sensible inference to be drawn was that this fundraising was for PTI.

Zubair Gull said he was also writing to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to inform them of this activity and whether it breached the Commission’s guidelines.

But moreover whether this and previous fundraising events by this political party had been declared to the ECP. If the fundraising was not declared to the ECP the complainant will pursue a police complaint in the United Kingdom in order to make enquiries into the provenance of the funds raised and their application.