How Pakistan Army
Blatantly Covered up Huge Frauds
By
Shahwar Faryal
ISLAMABAD:
How the Pakistan Army bulldozes the civilians whenever any financial
fraud is detected, even if it is years old, has become evident
from what happened with some of the files of military purchases
which came to the Auditor General of Pakistan.
These files were provided to the
AGP office when it conducted a special audit on Defense Procurements
for the five-year period 1990-95.
The
concerned military authorities first provided the secret files
containing the details of military purchases from different countries
including France, USA, Germany, UK and Sweden. But
within hours these secret files were physically snatched from
the auditors. They were forced to evaluate the deals based only
on what they could remember after they had a look at the details
for a very brief time.
This audit of major deals was done
in 1996 and its report was never made public nor it was submitted
to the Public Accounts Committee for examination. This important
report, which found huge irregularities, was dumped.
The Directorate General of Defense
Procurement (DGDP) is a joint venture organization under the Ministry
of Defense and the Defense Production Division, responsible for
the procurement of Defense stores from local and overseas resources.
It is also responsible for formulation of policies for the procurement
of Defense services.
According to one report obtained
by SA Tribune the DGDP concluded a Contract no 1341/63/DGDP/PC
3 c with MS Land Rover Exports Ltd., UK on June 30, 1996 for procurement
of 1,047 Land Rover Defender 90GS Jeeps at the rate of $20,889
plus 5 per cent for spares and 15 per cent for freight charges.
But it was observed from the United
Field Motors vehicles catalogue, issued by the manufacturers in
April 1996, that the same Land Rover Defender 90 was being sold
at the rate of £9,675 each. For large orders of 100 units
or more, quantity discount was also to be considered by the suppliers
on case to case basis. Thus, it appeared that DGDP purchased the
vehicles at a rate much higher involving an extra expenditure
of $6.856 million.
The scandalous part of the entire
case is that the case file of this deal was first supplied to
auditors but withdrawn after a few hours and never produced again
despite several requests. Non production of record to auditors
was in itself a serious irregularity.
Similarly a much higher rate was
paid in May 1993 to an authorized agent of the Ministry of Defense
of the Republic of Belarus. The seller offered a price of US$
825 but the Army paid $1,199 per piece of equipment to the firm.
In another case, three old Cessna
aircraft were purchased while a much better offer was available
from Learjet for 1993 models.
The AGP has asked the government
to constitute an inquiry committee to look into these serious
irregularities in the Defense purchases.
