WEB DESK
An audit report has revealed that Imran Khan’s government supplied Rs173.74 billion worth of RLNG to Arif Naqvi’s K-Electric without signing an agreement.
In July, the British daily Financial Times found that Arif Naqvi, the disgraced founder of Dubai-based Abraaj Group, funded Imran Khan’s party through an offshore firm Wotton Cricket.
Naqvi’s Wotton Cricket provided a total of $3 million to the PTI. Of this amount, the PTI declared at least $2.1 with the Election Commission of Pakistan but did not reveal the origin of the money. The remaining money transferred to PTI was never disclosed before the ECP in violation of electoral laws.
Financial Times reported in July that Naqvi was behind Wotton Cricket, which received some of the money from a UAE prince while Abraaj Group also transferred $1.3m to the PTI and “expensed the cost to a holding company through which it controlled K-Electric.”
Now, an audit report has revealed how the PTI returned the favor to K-Electric, the utility responsible for supplying electricity in Karachi and its outskirts.
In the report, the Auditor General has said that during the three years of the PTI rule, at least Rs173.74 billion worth of RLNG was supplied to K-Electric without signing an agreement, SAMAA TV reported on Tuesday.
The report said that the officials failed to provide the record of the agreement despite repeated requests.
Current Finance Minister Miftah Ismail has said on multiple occasions that the PTI imported expensive RLNG and sold it at cheaper rates, building up circular debt in the gas sector.
Arif Naqvi was arrested in London two years ago under fraud charges and faces extradition to the United States.
K-Electric response on PTI funding
After the Financial Times report created a stir on social media, a K-Electric spokesperson said at the time that no payment was made by K-E to, or on the behalf of, Wotton Cricket.
The spokesperson in a statement issued on Twitter said that K-E had hired Abraaj Investment Management Limited to manage KE affairs in 2009 but the contract ended in 2020.
