PTI releases details of funds transferred from UK

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehrik-e-insaf (PTI) has released details of millions of rupees of funds transferred from the United Kingdom to the party’s account this year.

Releasing details of the funding, PTI’S Overseas International Chapter’s secretary Dr Abdullah Riyar said Rs88.7 million received from the UK was a “slap in the face of drummers.”

He said despite a shameful and false propaganda campaign against the party, thousands of Pakistanis joined the PTI by sending money from their own pockets.

Riyar said that 11,208 overseas Pakistanis joined the PTI in the UK this year and they paid 36 pounds each as membership fee. He said this membership fee of PTI’S foreign branches was an important and permanent source of finance for the party.

He said the membership fee paid by workers had been transferred to the party’s account through formal channels, adding that data and details of every worker who paid the membership fee were safe.

Riyar said the details of PTI membership in other countries would also be released.

On the other hand, PTI’S founding member and petitioner in the foreign funding case against the ruling party Akbar S. Babar said the PTI’S latest statement on the funds collected from the UK was a “laughable atempt to hoodwink public opinion” as no such record of funding from Britain had been submited to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

Babar said in a statement that the PTI continued to make hollow public statements which were subsequently denied by the party’s lawyers before the ECP.

He said Prime Minister Imran Khan had on Jan.20 made a public offer of ending secrecy in the foreign funding case which was subsequently denied in writing by the PTI lawyer before the ECP’S scrutiny commitee on Feb.2.

Similarly, he added, PTI’S central finance secretary had on Feb.9 publicly admited that funds were received from a Gulf country through money changers into the private bank accounts of four employees of the PTI central office, including a telephone operator. However, on Feb.15, the PTI lawyer flatly denied it in writing before the scrutiny commitee.

Babar said the PTI had 50 international chapters with bank accounts, adding that he had identified seven international bank accounts of the party, including two Lloyds Bank accounts in Britain, which had been concealed from the ECP.

Babar said that to date not a single PTI international bank statement had been produced before the scrutiny commitee despite repeated orders.