Islamabad: Federal Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry has declared the local body bill 2021 passed by the Sindh Assembly in violation of Pakistan constitution. He also urged the Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah not to use inappropriate language.
At a press conference in Islamabad on Sunday, Chaudhry and Minister of State for Information Farrukh Habib attacked Maulana Fazul Rehman’s Jamiat Ulema Islam, the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN), and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) for their unexplained party accounts.
Fawad Chaudhry said that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has submitted a record of 40,000 donors to the Election Commission. The PTI is the first party to devise a funding system comprising 9 million overseas Pakistanis, he said.
He said the PTI government wanted to strengthen the ECP and it is necessary that the funding of the political parties registered with ECP should be open.
He demanded that funding to all the political parties registered with the ECP be investigated.
The federal minister said that the PMLN does not have a record of a single donor. Nawaz Sharif had given a donation of Rs100 million to PMLN in 2013 out of which Rs 40 million were transferred back to Nawaz Sharif’s account which meant that PML-N’s account was being used to launder black money, Chaudhry claimed.
He also said that there is no record of PPP funding from 2009 to 2012. An account was opened in 2013 with Rs420 million as opening balance but no source was explained, the minister said.
The information minister said that the Tehreek-e-Labeek Pakistan, Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islami also have no record of funding.
He said that too many ‘extremist’ parties have been registered with the Election Commission Pakistan (ECP) but they have not explained their source of funding and it is a matter of concern.
Habib said that the Election Commission constituted a scrutiny committee in 2017 to scrutinize the funding of PPP and PMLN but the inquiry report has not been completed yet and the PMLN and PPP were delaying the case.