PILDAT For Regulating Role Of Money In Politics

Reform proposals on better implementation of existing legal provisions regulating role of money in politics and improving legal flaws in the system of political finance were discussed at a consultative forum organized by PILDAT in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on the subject of Political Finance on Tuesday

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Sep, 2022 ) :Reform proposals on better implementation of existing legal provisions regulating role of money in politics and improving legal flaws in the system of political finance were discussed at a consultative forum organized by PILDAT in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on the subject of Political Finance on Tuesday.

Ali Al-Bayati said in his welcome remarks the UNDP always facilitated political actors and stakeholders to develop a common ground on policy reforms by providing a platform such as this consultative forum.

He said legal framework and implementation of political finance was a very important and sensitive issue not just for Pakistan but also for every democracy.

Presenting the context behind subject of the forum, Ahmed Bilal Mehboob said the ECP's order of August 2 in a 8-year-long case regarding prohibited funding generated a debate and raised questions about the system of political finance in Pakistan.

He said all financial matters dealing with politics and political system come under the realm of political finance, such as political parties' funding and spending, candidates' funding and spending, candidates' nomination form, political parties' annual accounts, legislators' annual assets and liabilities statements, political parties' election accounts, and candidates' election accounts.

He said legal framework of political finance was defined in Article 17 (3) of the Constitution and Elections Act, 2017 Chapter VIII and Chapter XI. However, he added, there had been limitations on effective enforcement of public finance system by the ECP such as on prescribed spending limits, lack of timely and sufficient scrutiny of submitted statements of accounts by candidates, legislators and political parties.

Director General Political Finance, ECP Masood Akhtar Sherwanee said: Every new party has to be enlisted by the ECP based on the constitution. The ECP has enlisted 156 political parties based on this criteria and allotted 130 symbols. The ECP has scrutinized statements of assets and liabilities of all legislators from 2020-2021 as well as political parties' forms of same period. Scrutiny of 99 parties has begun based on their annual statements.

"ECP has indigenously developed a software to digitally cover the entire spectrum of information on political finance. This would allow making historical and current data on political finance and make online reporting possible to the EC and also to integrate this with other data repositories in the country. Artificial Intelligence would also be used to process, understand and scrutinize data on political finance. The ECP has also begun field monitoring of electoral expenses to feed into this data. Global Political Finance system rests on Disclosure, Enforcement and Sanction." Besides, President PILDAT Ahmed Bilal Mehboob, Chief Technical Advisor UNDP Ali Al-Bayati, and Joint Director PILDAT Aasiya Riaz also addressed the forum.

Politically party representatives who joined the discussion forum included MPA and Finance Minister Punjab (PTI) Mohsin Leghari, Information Secretary JUI Aslam Ghauri, and Naib Amir JI Farid Ahmed Piracha.