Election Commission Reveals Assets Held by Political Parties

The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has announced the list of asset details and spending incurred by each individual political party last year. The list shows the total assets of the political parties, their bank balance, party expenditures etc.

Mandated by Law

According to Article 13 of the Political Parties Order 2002, it is required of every political party to submit a collective statement of their accounts. It should include details about annual income and expenditure as well as the source of their funds, assets and liabilities.

The account statements should be audited by a chartered accountant and should be submitted to the ECP within 60 days after the end of the ongoing fiscal year.

Here are the details that were submitted to ECP by major political parties regarding their accounts and expenditures last year:

PML-N

Starting with the ruling party, Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) declared assets worth Rs. 45 million in 2015.

The total income declared by the party stood at Rs. 16.5 million while total expenses were higher than Rs. 40 million. Rs. 135,000 out of the expenses were spent on political gatherings and Rs. 145,000 on “recreation”.

These figures are separate from the funds they use from the national exchequer.

Read More: Using Our Money for Political Gain, Federal & Provincial Govts Are Cheating the Nation

PTI’s Assets and Spending

The next major political party on the list is Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). Their assets amounted to Rs. 51.6 million while their bank balance was Rs. 110.9 million.

Total expenses for PTI, which were the highest among other political parties (declared assets, not actual assets), stood at Rs. 362.4 million.

Rs. 6.6 million were spent on election campaigns, Rs. 2.5 million for advertisements and Rs. 2.8 million were spent on ‘entertainment’.

PPP’s Bank Balance and Expenditure

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) mentioned their assets of Rs. 4.9 million. PPP transferred Rs. 100 million to PPP-Parliamentarians, a division of PPP that is chaired by the former president Asif Ali Zardari.

PPP-P had a bank balance of Rs. 200 million, making it one of the richest political parties in Pakistan today.

Other Parties

Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) declared assets of Rs. 45.7 million while the party collected more than Rs. 230 million as the  “martyr’s fund”.

The Karachi based party spent Rs. 250 million in total for all of their expenses.

Pakistan Muslim League Quaid (PML-Q) had assets of Rs. 500 million, Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT, headed by Tahir-ul-Qadri) declared assets of Rs. 1.13 million.

Awami National Party (ANP) shared asset details of Rs. 22.8 million while Jamaat-i-Islami’s assets were Rs. 100 million.

The lowest amount of assets were declared by Sheikh Rasheed’s Awami Muslim League, cited at a mere Rs. 138,000.