WASHINGTON: A major internal rift in the PTI over donations of millions of dollars from the US has almost choked all flow of dollars to the party and Imran Khan has given a shut up call to the Texas medical doctor who was the main coordinator of collecting funds for years.
“Nasrullah stop writing this nonsense. Had credited u with more intelligence,” the PTI chief wrote to Dr Nasrullah M Khan of Texas on Monday, July 29 in an Email. When the Dr replied in detail explaining what he wanted, an angry Imran Khan gave a one line message from his Blackberry: “Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2013 10:31:52 +0000: Please don’t send me anymore emails”.
Dr Nasrullah is the second top PTI supporter and fundraiser in the US after Fauzia Kasuri who has travelled all over the US raising millions and sending them to Pakistan, all legally and with a full record and formalities.
He was the main person who kept all records, looked after the legal requirements and followed all the US laws to send money to Pakistan.
The issue has been rolling on, on the social media for many weeks but is now bursting out in the mainstream newspapers and at a private sitting in Washington on Tuesday night where I saw some of the top PTI donors and supporters, the issues appeared to be far more serious than so far considered.
The issue at the centre of the PTI problems is that the donors and the people who raised these millions in the US want some explanations as to how and where the amount had been spent. They want an audit but the PTI donors say whenever any leader had raised this issue before Imran Khan, he brushed it aside and those who raised the question were sidelined, for one reason or another.
In one of his messages to Imran Khan, Dr Nasrullah had stated: “We the overseas PTI workers are very disappointed and have not gotten any answer. I want to communicate to the PTI leadership that we have very dedicated far more intelligent and top class people in every field and they are not sheep and goats. These people are far more superior and honest and have good morals and people around. The leaders sitting in central office are a bunch of low level intelligence and have no morals.”
Dr Nasrullah also had a note of warning for these people around Imran Khan. “We know how to handle them no matter what it takes. It is a match they cannot win.”
In his message to the PTI leadership, Dr Nasrullah says: “This is the party we worked day and night taking time away from family, children, business and collected the record amount of funds in the hope that we will have a change in Pakistan. The leader made us believe in full ‘Eman’ and gave us examples of the Prophet (PBUH) and his companions….Why PTI is exempt from all of this. I am asking this question for a long time. Is there any place in PTI where we can complain? Talking about moral collapse of the nation, is this not a moral collapse of all the top leadership?
“Has anyone the courage to ask for an independent accountability from top to bottom. All they need is money from overseas Pakistanis and then we the hardworking people are disposed of as a tissue paper.”
“I want to let the leadership know that this is not going to go away as business as usual. We will do everything in our power to get PTI come to a straight path no matter what it takes.”
The US donors say Dr Nasrullah ran the PTI USA, LCC account and it is wide open and any one can look at it.
Messages were sent to Imran Khan, PTI Information Secretary Shireen Mazari, MNA from Lahore Shafqat Mahmood, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Javed Hashmi, Asad Umar, Azam Khan Swati, Jehangir Tareen and Fauzia Kasuri for an official PTI response to these allegations and release of emails and data by donors here in Washington.
In a prompt response to the issues raised in the story, PTI Chairman Imran Khan sent the following message to me late on Wednesday night: “Shaheen we always have our accounts audited. Currently our accounts are being audited. We already have the preliminary report and I can assure u that there is no sign of any wrongdoing. We expect our final report to be published in a couple of weeks. The curt reply was because of Nasrullah’s rude emails .....nothing to do with not having our accounts audited.”
Immediately after Imran Khan’s response, Dr Shireen Mazari also sent her response. She stated in her Email: “Just wanted to clarify: One, the exchange between Nasrullah and Imran Khan was a personal one and has nothing to do with the procedure undertaken for funds from overseas.
“Two, there is a regular audit procedure undertaken yearly for all PTI accounts — for overseas donations and other local accounts. The ECP requirements are also fulfilled every year in terms of submission of party accounts.
“Three, on receiving any complaints or questions about donations to PTI, the Party immediately takes note and the Finance committee examines these issues as well as bringing in outside auditors. This process is presently going on as a regular routine.
“Four, Imran Khan does not handle accounts or financial matters of the Party. There is a proper Finance Committee as well as a Finance Secretary.
“Five, Shaheen you have to remember that personal groupings and rivalries exist amongst the PTI overseas supporters also and sometimes in staking out their claims they get a little carried away.”
Asad Umar, in response said he had referred the issue to Dr Shireen Mazari, the Information Secretary. Others did not respond immediately.
Another important PTI leader who was its Central Information Secretary wrote what he called “Ramadan Confessions” on his Facebook page and gave a lot of details of what is going on.
Akbar S Babar described some of the close associates of Imran Khan as “Lounge Lizards” and wrote about party funds after the 2005 floods: “How many sheds were built at what cost nobody knows. There was no audit and no third party validation of the resources and the output. When a senior PTI member from Rawalpindi raised concerns with evidence about alleged corruption in the way the money was spent, he was sidelined and no independent inquiry was conducted. The amounts were not big but a threshold was crossed unnoticed.”
“Many months later, Imran Khan asked me about the real estate venture and I explained my fears and the reasons for opting out. He said ‘Akbar but how could you trust lounge lizard ‘A?’ IK loves to play games with people, pitching one against the other sometimes even at his own and/or party’s expense.”
“My real reason for refusing any party position again was the news that kept trickling in about the PTI lounge lizards taking full control over its resources and acting like a mafia.
Whenever I would confront IK that PTI had become a private limited company and needs to go back to its original status, IK’s usual response would be ‘I will take care of it,’ or ‘either they will be reformed or removed,’ Akbar wrote on Facebook.
All these concerns were raised in the Tuesday’s private sitting with PTI donors in Washington. It raises many questions as the immediate impact is that the PTI has stopped getting donations from the US. Whether this situation will also have an adverse impact on the fundraising for Shaukat Khanum Hospital is another matter.
