LAHORE: Federal Minister for Information and Technology Chaudhry Fawad Hussain stated on Sunday that the state is willing to strengthen ties with those who agree to follow the law.
Fawad made the remark while responding to reporters’ questions at a press conference about the death of a police officer in an alleged armed attack on a polio vaccination team by the TTP in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Tank district.
He stated that the state has a clear policy regarding parties or groups with a history of terrorism or extremism. He added that the state was not aware of the TLP or any other similar organizations.
“We have fought those who have refused to comply [with laws] in the past and will continue to do so in the future,” he said.
He claimed that the Election Commission of Pakistan had also registered a number of extremist parties and groups (ECP). He stated that there were significant doubts about the funding sources of various parties, and there was no record of funding for TLP.
He added that the JUI-F was also facing serious allegations about its funding sources. The ECP, he stated, should scrutinize and publicize all parties’ funding sources. It should investigate the PPP, PML-N, and PTI, as well as other registered political parties, to enable the public to compare and evaluate them, he said.
Accompanied by State Minister for Information and Broadcasting Farrukh Habib at Governor House, he stated that while the ECP’s scrutiny committee examined the PTI’s foreign funding source, the same committee took no action in the PPP’s or PML-foreign N’s funding cases.
He stated that the PTI had submitted to the ECP a list of over 40,000 donors totaling approximately 22 volumes in order for the party’s funding sources to be made public.
The minister stated that the PML-N undervalued its assets, stating that a house in Islamabad’s F-7 Sector was valued at only Rs27 million, while two transactions totaling Rs145 million and Rs86.7 million were also made to a PML-N account in 2013, the source of which was also unknown. However, he added, the PTI had submitted records of all of its donors, including those who contributed one dollar or ten dollars to the PTI.
Chaudhry stated that the PML-N claimed an office in Islamabad’s F-8 area but it was unknown who was funding the office’s financial operations between 2013 and 2015. He added that an audit of the PML-Punjab N’s office was not conducted between 2013 and 2015, despite the fact that a balance of Rs17.5 million was available in its account without a known source of income.
The minister stated that Nawaz Sharif donated 100 million rupees to its party and that Rs45 million was returned to Nawaz Sharif, indicating that the said method was used for money laundering. He added that a company based in London, United Kingdom was collecting and arranging funds for the PML-N, but there was still no record of the sources from which the company collected funds.
Fawad stated that no information on PPP’s funding from 2009 to 2012 was available. He stated that the PPP opened a source account and deposited Rs420 million into it without disclosing the source of the funds to the ECP and that the party also deposited Rs3.6 million, Rs3.5 million, and Rs2.5 million into its audited account from 2013 to 2015 without disclosing the source of funding.
The PPP claimed to have spent approximately Rs230 million during the 2013 general elections, but no source was cited, he claimed. The minister stated that the PPP, under the leadership of then-Pakistani Ambassador to the United States Hussain Haqqani, had also established a company in the United States that collected millions of dollars for the PPP without disclosing its sources, implying that all political parties should be held accountable.
The ECP should examine political parties’ accounts in phases, examining the accounts of three major parties in the first phase and making them public, and then the accounts of the remaining parties, including Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), JUI-F, and TLP in the second phase, he added.
He congratulated the Punjab government on introducing an effective new local government system aimed at decentralizing powers at the lower level, noting that for the first time, mayors’ elections would be held directly in all districts of Punjab, with mayors having their own empowered cabinet, and that the new system aimed to devolve powers to local representatives in order to address people’s concerns and effect change.
He stated that Prime Minister Imran Khan kept his promise to the Pakistani people of introducing a truly empowered local government system, adding that the Sindh chief minister should focus on his governance responsibilities rather than making indecent and rude statements about the federal government.
For the first time since 1964, the minister stated, Karachi was engaging in federal politics rather than regional politics. In response to a question, Fawad stated that local government elections could be conducted using electronic voting machines because the Election Commission of Pakistan should issue a tender for the purchase of such machines, inviting various vendors or companies, and the procurement process could be completed within a few months.
In response to another question, the minister stated that inflation has been declining steadily for the last three weeks, adding that petrol, oil, wheat, lentils, and other commodities are cheaper in Pakistan than in other countries in the region.
He stated that the government had assumed responsibility for the people’s health-related expenses through the Sehat Insaf program, providing significant relief to the populace while also increasing their purchasing power, as they could now use the funds for other purposes.
Fawad Chaudhry stated that the PTI government has been working to resolve Balochistan’s issues since its inception.
Farrukh Habib, the State Minister for Information and Broadcasting, said financial records of all political parties should be made public so that the public can analyse and compare them, noting that the ECP’s scrutiny committee examined the PTI’s accounts and funding details but not those of the PPP or the PML-N.
He demanded that the ECP conduct an audit of the PPP and PML-N accounts in accordance with the Supreme Court of Pakistan’s directions. Farrukh stated that both the PPP and the PML-N were attempting to conceal facts and account details, as Benazir Bhutto had previously accused Nawaz Sharif in her book of receiving funding from foreign elements in order to destabilise her government. He stated that the ECP should scrutinise the accounts of smaller political parties in addition to the major political parties.
Two police officers were killed in armed attacks on a polio team.
A police official was martyred earlier this week during an armed attack on a polio vaccination team in KP’s Tank district on Sunday.
Tank Deputy Commissioner Kabir Khan Afridi confirmed the attack, stating that armed men opened fire on a police constable assigned to provide security for a polio vaccination team in Tank’s Shada village.
The constable died on the scene, while the attackers fled, Afridi said. This was the second consecutive day that a polio vaccination team was attacked in Tank, with a cop being martyred as a result. Additionally, it was the second attack allegedly carried out by Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan following its announcement that the ceasefire agreement would be terminated.
In the same district on Saturday, gunmen attacked and killed security personnel assigned to protect a polio vaccination team. The TTP, which has been banned, claimed that its fighters attacked the Tank polio team. Extremist groups frequently attack polio teams and the security personnel assigned to protect them, alleging that vaccination campaigns were a failure “Secret plot to sterilize children”.
