The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has requested that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) take swift action in recovering funds and declaring defaulters, including the Chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), for the illegal use of choppers belonging to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government. A letter from the ECP to the NAB requested that the list of defaulters be shared with the electoral body, which will then be circulated to returning officers for further action.
It has been determined that two official choppers of the KP government have been used for a total of 1,800 unauthorized trips, with politicians using them 588 times and government officials using them 577 times. Unauthorized individuals have an outstanding amount of over Rs 198.3 million, while politicians have a sum of over Rs 96.8 million to pay. Government officials owe over Rs 50.8 million and others have an outstanding amount of over Rs 50 million.
It is important to note that the KP Assembly declared the use of the provincial government’s helicopters as legal through a draft amendment in the law from November 1, 2008 to December 2022, but the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) challenged the amendment in the Peshawar High Court. Following an investigation into the illegal use of KP government helicopters, the National Accountability Bureau reported that those who used the helicopters for personal purposes owed the province a sum of Rs 90 million.
The development comes in response to the unauthorized usage of choppers by Khan, former and current provincial and federal ministers, among others. In addition, the NAB has written to the KP government in order to recover the costs of all illegal helicopter trips taken by “influential politicians, public officials, and others.”
