Investigation of financial records concerns not just PTI but all parties: Farrukh Habib.

PTI leader and federal Secretary for Railways Farrukh Habib said on Sunday that bookkeeping and maintaining of financial records and transactions for submission to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) were incumbent on all political parties, and the investigation of such records concerned not just the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf but all political parties.

He was addressing a press conference in Islamabad along with Information Minister Shibli Faraz regarding PTI's foreign funding case and the Pakistan Democratic Movement's (PDM) planned January 19 protest in front of the ECP.

Habib said the matter was an "open-and-shut case" which left no room for confusion since under Article 6(3) of the Political Parties Ordinance and Article 17(3) of the Constitution, all political parties were duty-bound to maintain financial records and submit them to the ECP. "This is [a matter for] all political parties especially the PPP, PML-N and JUI-F," the federal secretary said.

He added that it had been four years since the formation of a scrutiny committee which was hearing a case regarding details of the aforementioned parties' financial records and receipts. The ECP has issued three written orders for the parties to submit their records yet they have failed to provide any, Habib said.

"Inform us of your real means of income, meaning are these [the sources] through which funds have kept coming in your party?" the secretary said while addressing the opposition parties. He asked the parties why they were "so afraid" to present their records.

On similar lines, Faraz said as far as the PTI foreign funding case was concerned, the party had submitted records of its donations for elections to the ECP scrutiny committee ever since the orders of the Supreme Court. "These are 40,000 entries of names, addresses, numbers [and] authenticated transactions which came through proper banking channels and deposited into party accounts," the minister said.

He said it was required of all political parties to submit financial records of the last five years once they received their election symbol from the ECP yet "in the past, institutions were manipulated [and records were not submitted]".

The foreign funding case...