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| December 3, 2005 | Saturday | Shawwal 30, 1426 |
Govt failed to justify purchase: opposition: VVIP aircraft
ISLAMABAD, Dec 2: The opposition members of the Senate Standing Committee on Defence on Friday said the government had failed to give satisfactory replies to their questions raised in the committee meeting on the issue of purchase of two VVIP aircraft.
In a joint statement, Farhatullah Babar and Rukhsana Zuberi of People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) and Sardar Mahtab Ahmed Khan Abbasi of Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) said that the explanation given by the government for the purchase of the two new aircraft for use by the VVIPs was not convincing to justify the incurring heavy expenditure at a time when the nation was seeking donations for reconstruction in the quake-hit areas.
It was pointed out in the meeting that soon after General Musharraf took over in October 1999, a Boeing-737 being used by the then prime minister was grounded as the government had disavowed the use of special VVIP planes and instead decided to use commercial flights. The reasons advanced now that the new planes are for use by all VVIPs, therefore, do not stand to reason, they said.
The opposition members also demanded to know whether a force majure clause existed in the contract agreement to which recourse could be made to cancel the deal at this stage and divert resources towards reconstruction.
“The opposition also wanted to know the balance of liability on both the seller and buyer in the event of cancellation of the deal,” they said, adding that satisfactory answers to these and other questions duly supported by relevant extracts from contract documents were yet to be made available to the committee.
In view of the donors insistence that the government should trim its fat and in view of the fact that the special VVIP aircraft had been returned to the PIA in the past, it was asked whether it would not be prudent if the purchase of the aircraft was cancelled or at least delayed, the opposition members said.
“A satisfactory answer to this observation has yet to come,” they added. “We look forward to receiving replies to the issues raised before the next meeting,” they said.
The opposition senators also expressed their surprise that the Senate Secretariat had issued a statement after the meeting in which it was claimed that all questions raised with regard to the purchase of two VVIP aircraft were satisfactorily answered by the government.
“This is a serious breach of understanding between the government side and the opposition with regard to going to the press about what transpired in the meeting,” they said.
They said the purchase of VVIP aircraft was the first item on the agenda of the Friday’s meeting, the other being the purchase of Saab aircraft from Sweden. Because of some serious questions and concerns raised by the opposition even the first agenda item could not be concluded and it was decided to adjourn the meeting till written replies to the issues raised were furnished by the Ministry of Defence, they said.
The opposition senators said that the government side then specifically requested that no report of the Friday’s proceedings be issued to the media till the next committee meeting. It was also decided to defer the consideration of Saab deal to the next meeting of the committee.
The senators said that the claim by the Senate Secretariat that issues raised were satisfactorily answered was not only a breach of the agreement but also patently wrong.
They said the fact that the three-hour meeting concluded without completing discussion of even one agenda item was enough evidence that the issue raised had not been addressed satisfactorily due to which the meeting had to be adjourned.
Earlier, the opposition senators staged a token walkout over the decision of the chairman of the defence committee, Nisar Memon, of not allowing the media to cover the proceedings.
It may be mentioned that only a day before the meeting, Mr Memon while speaking at a seminar had claimed that the media was completely free in the country and that he had to ban the reporters in the previous defence committee meeting because the room was small.
The journalists waited outside the committee room to the end the meeting. Interestingly, when the meeting concluded, even the opposition senators refused to brief the media about the proceedings saying that they had reached an understanding with the government that no one would issue any statement about the meeting.
Later, the Senate Secretariat issued a statement, which was later withdrawn by the Public Relations Officer Syed Sajid Mohsin.
However, the opposition members refused to withdraw their statement saying that the private channels had already aired the contents of the press release issued by the Senate Secretariat.
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