PTI’s Foreign Funding Unveiled by UK Paper

The Financial Times (FT) of UK has unveiled an investigation in a report that PTI received funds of £2mn in April 2013 from a distinguishd Arab personality and Abraaj founder Arif Naqvi’s Cayman Islands-incorporated company Wootton Cricket Ltd was used to bankroll Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)after receiving funds from companies and individuals.

The FT stated in its report: “Pakistan forbids foreign nationals and companies from funding political parties, but Abraaj emails and internal documents seen by the Financial Times, including a bank statement covering the period between February 28 and May 30 2013 for a Wootton Cricket account in the UAE, show that both companies and foreign nationals as well as citizens of Pakistan sent millions of dollars to Wootton Cricket — before money was transferred from the account to Pakistan for the PTI.”

It’s been more than Sven years that the Election Commission had been trying to investigate the funding of PTI.  In January, PTI was accused by the ECP’s scrutiny committee which issued a damning report in which it stated the PTI received funding from foreign nationals and companies and claimed it of under-reporting funds and concealing various of bank accounts. Wootton Cricket was named in the report, but at that time Naqvi wasn’t recognized as the owner of company.

Exclusive story in @FinancialTimes: The strange case of the cricket match that helped fund @ImranKhanPTI‘s political rise. In the print edition on Friday. https://t.co/ACKHpsaFHC

— Simon Clark (@ClarkWriting) July 28, 2022

The journalist and author Simon Clark tweeted, “Exclusive story in @FinancialTimes The strange case of the cricket match that helped fund @ImranKhanPTI’s political rise. In the print edition on Friday.” The report issues by the journalist Simon Clark claimed that for several years PTI’s foreign funding case has been going on and Pakistani authorities were aware that Arif Naqvi had been supporting and funding PTI yet the ultimate source behind all this funding and money is being unveiled for the first time.

The report said: “Wootton Cricket’s bank statement shows it received $1.3mn on March 14 2013 from Abraaj Investment Management Ltd, the fund management unit of Naqvi’s private equity firm, boosting the account’s previous balance of $5,431. Later the same day, $1.3mn was transferred from the account directly to a PTI bank account in Pakistan. Abraaj expensed the cost to a holding company through which it controlled K-Electric, the power provider to Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city. A further $2mn flowed into the Wootton Cricket account in April 2013 from a UAE personality, according to the bank statement and a copy of the Swift transfer details.”

Naqvi then exchanged emails with a colleague about transferring $1.2mn more to the PTI. Six days after the $2mn arrived in the Wootton Cricket bank account, Naqvi transferred $1.2mn from it to Pakistan in two instalments. Rafique Lakhani, the senior Abraaj executive responsible for managing cash flow, wrote in an email to Naqvi that the transfers were intended for the PTI,” the FT report disclosed. It further claimed that PTI had been receiving funds since April 2013 for elections when Imran Khan was most in need of the funds. “It was a critical time for Khan to gather funds ahead of the election scheduled for May 2013, and Naqvi worked closely with other Pakistani businessmen to raise money for his campaign. The largest entry in Wootton Cricket’s bank account in the months before the election was the $2mn from the UAE figure.”

After Lakhani, the Abraaj executive told Naqvi in an email about the arrival of UAE Sheikh’s money, for which Naqvi replied, “send 1.2 million to PTI”. According to the FT, in another email to Lakhani after the Sheikh’s money entered the Wootton Cricket account Naqvi wrote: “do not tell anyone where funds are coming from, ie who is contributing”. “Sure sir,” Lakhani responded.

He wrote that he would transfer $1.2mn from Wootton Cricket to the PTI’s account in Pakistan. Then after considering sending the funds to the PTI via Naqvi’s personal account, Lakhani proposed to send the money in two instalments to a personal account for businessman Tariq Shafi in Karachi and an account for an entity called the Insaf Trust in Lahore. Although the ownership of the Insaf Trust is still vague, the emails state that the final destination of the funds was the PTI, said the FT.On May 6 2013, Wootton Cricket transferred a total of $1.2mn to Shafi and the Insaf Trust.

Responding to the question sent by the UK publication, PTI Chairman Imran Khan, confirmed that Tariq Shafi donated to the PTI and stated in written answer that he had visited Arif Naqvi’s Wooton Place for “a fundraising event which was attended by many PTI supporters”. “It is for Tariq Shafi to answer as to from where he received this money.” Khan told the FT. Shafi didn’t respond to requests for comment. Imran Khan told the FT that neither he nor his party was aware of Abraaj providing $1.3mn through Wootton Cricket. He also told he was “not aware” of the PTI receiving any funds that originated from the UAE personality.

“Arif Naqvi has given a statement which was filed before the Election Commission also, not denied by anyone, that the money came from donations during a cricket match and the money as collected by him was sent through his company Wootton Cricket,” Imran Khan wrote.He told the paper he was waiting for the final decision of the election commission’s investigation. “It will not be appropriate to prejudge PTI,” the former PM said.

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The FT claimed that Arif Naqvi had told the ECP that he had “not collected any fund from any person of non-Pakistani origin, company [public or private] or any other prohibited source” but there is contradiction in bank statement for Wootton Cricket that shows Naqvi transferred three instalments directly to the PTI in 2013 adding up to a total of $2.12mn. “The largest was the $1.3mn from Abraaj which company documents show was transferred to Wootton Cricket but charged to its holding company for K-Electric.  Akbar S Babar, who helped establish the PTI, told the FT that “prohibited funding took place”