Under-fire PTI insists funds being managed transparently.

ISLAMABAD -- As the scrutiny committee of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) auditing foreign funding of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf met for a second consecutive day on Thursday, the PTI said it was the only party that was managing its funds with complete transparency.

'PTI is the first party to have made a departure from the established practice of PML-N, PPP and JUI-F of receiving heavy donations from vested interest groups, land grabbers and other rogue elements and returning the favour to them at the cost people of Pakistan after the polls,' Information Minister Shibli Faraz told Dawn.

He said the PTI set a new tradition of fundraising by its party members both within the country and Pakistani expatriates, owing no obligation to anybody for 'investing in election campaigns'.

'All this was transparent and all the details of the funds received by the party have been submitted to the ECP,' he added.

Opposition questions meeting of PM's close associate with CEC amidst hearing of foreign funding case against ruling party

Mr Faraz said the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Pakistan Peoples Party had failed to submit details of their suspicious donations and it was time for them to submit all the documents asked for by the ECP without any delay. 'These parties must stop a hue and cry over the PTI's funding and come clean on donations received by them.'

The ECP's scrutiny committee at its second meeting in as many days again examined the PTI record of two LLCs (limited liability companies) registered in the United States.

According to sources, the petitioner's lawyer Syed Ahmad Hassan Shah, assisted by Badar Iqbal Chaudhry, objected to the PTI record and demanded that official record of the two companies registered on the instructions of PTI chairman Imran Khan be scrutinised. He said they were being asked to scrutinise fake documents and were participating in the process in protest.

Hassan Shah told the committee that it should follow the ECP order of Aug 27, 2020 to authenticate each and every evidence before it. He said the committee should not expect 'us to rubber-stamp fake and forged PTI documents'.

The committee was asked to either accept or reject official evidence to bring some credibility into the scrutiny.

The committee is expected to meet again on Jan 20 to deliberate on the authenticity issue and communicate its order before proceeding further.

In a related development, PTI's chief organiser Saifullah Niazi on...