ISLAMABAD: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has instructed all banks in the country to provide details of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) foreign funding from 2009 to 2013 to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), the Dawn local daily reported on Wednesday.
The directive was issued in response to an ECP letter written earlier this month that required the information from the central bank.
Under Pakistan’s constitution, all state institutions must help the election regulatory authority to make it possible for it to perform its responsibilities effectively.
The PTI foreign funding case acquired political significance when the party’s former central vice president, Akbar S. Babar, reported an alleged massive scam in funding coming from abroad. The ECP formed a committee in April to probe the issue.
But the PTI’s leaders and legal team refused to provide relevant financial details to the election body, making it difficult for the committee to perform an audit.
The party also approached the Islamabad High Court to declare the ECP’s decision to scrutinize its accounts null and void.
In this context, the election authority approached the SBP for PTI’s financial details, making the central bank issue instructions to all banks in the country to share all relevant information with the ECP directly. Babar has welcomed the SBP’s instructions, Dawn reported.
Banks directed to submit PTI’s foreign funding details to ECP
Banks directed to submit PTI’s foreign funding details to ECP
- The PTI foreign funding case acquired political significance when the party’s former central vice president, Akbar S. Babar, reported an alleged massive scam in funding coming from abroad
- A three-member ECP committee was constituted in April to probe the issue
US Republicans back Trump on Iran strikes, block bid to rein in war powers
- Republicans blocked prior efforts to curb Trump’s war powers
- Prolonged war could affect November mid-term elections
WASHINGTON: US Senate Republicans backed President Donald Trump’s military campaign against Iran on Wednesday, voting to block a bipartisan resolution aiming to stop the air war and require that any hostilities against Iran be authorized by Congress.
As voting continued, the tally in the 100-member Senate was 52 to 47 not to advance the resolution, largely along party lines, with almost every Republican voting against the procedural motion and almost every Democrat supporting it.
The latest effort by Democrats and a few Republicans to rein in President Donald Trump’s repeated foreign troop deployments, sponsors described the war powers resolution as a bid to take back Congress’ responsibility to declare war, as spelled out in the US Constitution.
Opponents rejected this, insisting that Trump’s action was legal and within his right as commander in chief to protect the United States by ordering limited strikes.
“This is not a forever war, indeed not even close to it. This is going to end very quickly,” Republican Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a speech against the resolution.
The measure had not been expected to succeed. Trump’s fellow Republicans hold slim majorities in both the Senate and House of Representatives, and have blocked previous resolutions seeking to curb his war powers.
US Senator Ted Cruz speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on March 4, 2026, ahead of the vote on a resolution aimed at curbing President Donald Trump's authority to continue military strikes on Iran. (AFP)
