ECP asks political parties to submit statements of accounts by Aug 29

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has directed the political parties to submit their annual statements of accounts by August 29, ARY News reported on Thursday.

The political parties have been asked to submit their statements of accounts by August 29, containing annual income and expenses, sources of its funds and assets and liabilities.

The order read that the issuance of electoral symbols will be stopped for not providing the annual statements to the election commission.

In February, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had released details of assets owned by the political parties in 2018-19, as out of 125 political parties registered with the commission, only 82 of them submitted the records.

As per the details submitted by the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), the party had owned assets worth up to Rs 225.3 million despite losing assets worth Rs 90 million during the year.

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PTI Chairman Imran Khan had submitted an affidavit with the commission that the party has received no funding from prohibited sources, saying that its expenses have crossed the revenue collection. The PTI had submitted expenditures of over Rs 508 million during the year.

Similarly, in an affidavit submitted with the ECP, the Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) had said that it possesses a bank balance of Rs 160 million which also included Rs 13.5 million of the party funds it received.

The total number of assets held by the party is worth over seven million rupees. “The party spent an amount of Rs 20 million as compared to an income of over five million rupees,” the ECP said citing the party’s affidavit.

Another top party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML), had also claimed that its expenditures remained higher than the income generated during the year as the party disclosed assets worth over Rs 80 million.

The party had incurred an expense of Rs 200 million during the year 2018-19 as compared to Rs 15.5 million income.

Sheikh Rasheed’s Awami Muslim League (AML) was amongst the poorest party as it owns only Rs 0.25 million along with the Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) that also has a bank balance of Rs 0.231 million.

Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) has assets of upto Rs 49.9 million, just above the Muttahida Quami Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) that possesses assets worth Rs 41.9 million.

The Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) had also declared party assets worth over nine million rupees.