PML-N, PPP failed to submit foreign funding proofs: Shibli Faraz

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Senator Shibli Faraz Monday said the opposition parties, instead of holding a sit-in in front of the ECP, should better submit documentary proofs of their foreign funding in order to avoid cancellation of their registration.

The PML-N, PPP and JUI-F did not heed to repeated directives of the scrutiny committee of ECP to submit documentary proofs in the foreign funding cases, filed by the PTI, which might result in forfeiture of the funds received from abroad, besides cancellation of their election symbols, he added.

Flanked by Parliamentary Secretary for Railways Farrukh Habib, he told the media that the leadership of the three parties should answer to the questions asked by the ECP regarding their foreign funds instead of hurling threats of sit-ins.

Both the PPP and the PML-N were trapped as they had no documents to prove their case, and that was why they were using pressure tactics and wanted to trap the PTI, he remarked.

Shibli Faraz said the PTI was not involved in receiving funding from prohibited entities, including foreign governments or multi-national companies. There should be a difference between prohibited funding and foreign funding. The funds received from multinationals and foreign nationals fell under prohibited funding, he added.

He said former MNA Muhammad Hanif Abbasi had filed a case against Prime Minister Imran Khan in 2016 on account of alleged foreign funding to the PTI. The Supreme Court, however, had declared Imran Khan as an upright and righteous person, and directed the ECP to scrutinise the foreign funding issue, he added. The minister said the opposition seemed to have no idea about the difference between foreign funding and prohibited funding.

The minister expressed his heartfelt condolences over the massacre of 11 innocent citizens in Machh, Balochistan the other day and sympathised with their bereaved families.

Speaking on the occasion, Parliamentary for Railways Farrukh Habib said the ECP's scrutiny committee, while auditing the accounts of PML-N and PPP, had issued three different orders asking them to submit details of their accounts, but none of them was ready to comply with the Commission's directions. He said the PML-N was registered as a private limited company in the United Kingdom and the United States. It was a question mark as to how a political party was registered as a private limited company in foreign countries, he added.

Similarly, he said, the PPP's principal agent in the US was Asif Ali Zardari in US, who had been receiving funding from foreign companies there. He said the ECP had been asking the PPP to submit its foreign accounts' record, but it had not provided any documents in that regard. Farrukh Habib asked the opposition parties to bring evidences of foreign funding when they came for a sit-in in front of the ECP. The PML-N and the PPP had taken financial assistance from the big donors, he added. —APP