Just hours after the election watchdog’s decision to de-seat 25 dissident members of Punjab Assembly (MPAs) belonging to the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) over floor-crossing during the election of the Punjab chief minister, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb on Friday urged the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to decide the foreign funding case against the former ruling party at the earliest, saying the verdict had been pending for the last eight years.
Addressing a press conference along with Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Central Secretary Information Faisal Karim Kundi in the federal capital, the minister said if the verdict regarding PTI members’ ‘defection’ could be given in a month, then keeping this speed in the view, the decision on the foreign funding case, pending for the last eight years, should be given within a day.
She said former prime minister Imran Khan, who was imposed on the country for four years, engaged in money laundering through foreign funding. “Illegal funding was received in the name of donations and flood aid, and that too in bank accounts that were not declared,” she said.
Marriyum said there were orders of the court for day-to-day hearing of the PTI foreign funding case, and added that the party and its chief Imran Khan had not submitted any record regarding foreign funding in the ECP to date. She said the record of the PTI’s foreign funding submitted by the State Bank of Pakistan to the ECP on the petition of Akbar S Babar had already declared Imran a money launderer. She also said Hamza Shehbaz would continue to work as Punjab chief minister, as de-seating of PTI’s 25 dissident lawmakers had no effect on the coalition government led by him. She said the PML-N and its allied parties still enjoyed a comfortable majority in the Punjab Assembly.
