The Billions that
went Down the Defense Drain
By
Shahwar Faryal
ISLAMABAD:
Concrete evidence has become available of the massive scale and
expanse of the billions which have gone down the drain in Pakistan
in the name of “Defense Expenditure”, never previously
opened to any scrutiny by civilians.
Despite
the fact that scrutiny of Pakistan’s Defense Budget and
expenditures has never been seriously allowed by the armed forces,
whatever little peeking has been done by some in-house audits
and committees, the scale of misappropriations and irregularities
is horrendous, according to a report prepared by the Auditor General
of Pakistan.
The
Report points out that the Defense Establishment totally ignores
the objections and directives of the auditors, in utter disregard
of any financial discipline.
A
glimpse at the Report shows that in the last 10 years misappropriations
and irregularities of over Rs. 70 Billion had been detected in
various Defense Expenditures. More than 1,850 objections had been
raised by auditors on these expenses but the military authorities
had just ignored them. A consolidated list of 730 important objections
was also sent to the Defense Authorities involving over Rs 8 billion
but no one took any notice. Click for
Selected Pages from Report Page1 | Page2
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These
flaws, it may be noted, have been found in mostly administrative
expenditures and do not include purchases of weapons and arms,
aircraft, ships, tanks, missiles or anything related to the nuclear
program. It only shows the gravity of the existing situation in
the limited accounts which have been opened by the Defense Establishment
for audit of some kind.
Bulk
of the expenses still remain closed to any scrutiny and thus the
billions misappropriated under those accounts may never become
public knowledge.
It
is interesting to note the trend and volume of these “irregular”
expenses. The Chart compiled by the Auditors from 1989-90 to 1998-99
shows in the earlier years of the 90s, these expenses were comparatively
on the lower side but during the political governments of Benazir
Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, the Generals got totally out of control
and figures of objectionable expenses jumped from less than a
billion rupees per year until 1993 to over Rs. 6.3 billion in
1994-95, to an astounding Rs. 43 billion in 1997-98 and another
Rs. 12 billion in 1998-99. Click for
Chart
The
trend clearly indicates that the Generals were totally in control
of the financial affairs even during the “elected political
governments” of Benazir and Nawaz Sharif and had actually
become so reckless that they just did not bother about any accountability
or scrutiny by the civilians.
Since
this Report deals with the accounts up to 1999, the situation
after the Musharraf’s October coup would be of greater interest
as after his take over, the entire allocation of the Defense Budgets,
administration and expenditure came under army control with no
political or civilian interference. It would be safe to presume
that if by 1999 more than Rs. 70 billion had been misappropriated,
in the next three years the theft level would not have gone down
significantly.
The
figure of these misappropriated amounts would, at present, be
over Rs. 100 billion and still there is no sign that the new political
government of Prime Minister Jamali would seriously try to scrutinize
or curtail this huge drain on the economy.
These
expenses were not scrutinized in detail by the Ad hoc Public Accounts
Committee set up by General Pervez Musharraf headed by a timid
bureaucrat HU Beg. Yet even this pro-army and pro-establishment
committee could not ignore the massive scale of the plunder in
the name of the Defense Expenditure run amok.
“Recurrence
of a large number of irregularities has been observed by Audit
despite Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Directives to stop these
irregularities,” the Report noted in terse words, the significance
of which should not be lost as this Report was compiled under
a Military Regime and all attempts would have been made to brush
the most blatant of scandals under the carpet.
The
Report gives a long list of these “recurring irregularities”
some of which just point to the tips of the icebergs and do not
give any details. Many of these scams have been reported by this
newspaper in earlier issues.
The
main “recurring irregularities” pointed out were:
-
Irregular use of Defence Resources for Officers Housing Schemes.
CSDs, PAFWA, Bahria Foundation, MGOs Welfare Projects, etc. (This
one-line explanation hides scandals by the scores as housing schemes
for Defense personnel are a nationwide scam in which lands are
grabbed and freely awarded to Generals and senior officers. The
CSD stores provide cheap and duty-free goods of all kinds to the
armed forces. The Associations like PAFWA and Bahria are huge
scandals within themselves, with the Bahria having launched a
whole new city near Islamabad on land acquired from the government
and sold to Navy officers.)
- Irregular use of military lands by Army Authorities. (This noting
covers land scams all over the country which would run into billions
on their own. Details would become available when a new Public
Accounts Committee set up by the elected Parliament comprising
representatives of the people starts digging into the affairs
of these military lands and how they were grabbed and distributed
among the uniformed men of the armed forces.
- Irregular recoveries from CNE patients and non-deposit of receipts
in Government account. (This is a case of outright theft as any
money collected from these thousands of patients which has not
been deposited in government account has gone into pockets of
the army men. The exact size of this scandal is still not clear).
- Over issue of stores to contractors. (Again a case of direct
theft the scale of which s yet to become public).
- Non-recovery of Risk and Cost Money from Defaulting Contractors.
(This is a huge scam as military contracts run into billions and
if these defaulting contractors are being helped by being allowed
to go free without any penalties, the collusion of top military
authorities is obvious and evident).
- Non-recovery of rent and allied charges from occupants of military
buildings. (This again promises to be a huge scandal as military
buildings rented out to tenants are in thousands all over the
country and if rents are not being collected, someone at the top
somewhere is making a lot of money, unchecked).
- Irregular waiving off of liquidated damages. (This apparently
is a direct favor done to some of the favorites as waiving off
millions of rupees is not done unless the competent authority
has a direct interest in the write off. The extent of this scam
is still to be determined).
Some
other recurring irregularities were also given in the Report which
too would amount to wastage or misappropriation of millions of
government funds allocated to the Defense Budget.
