ISLAMABAD, Jan 28: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has urged the government to take the parliament into confidence over the terms and conditions of agreements allowing the use of country's airbases by foreign troops in the war on terrorism.

Party spokesman Senator Farhat Ullah Babar said the parliament had a right to know how much revenue had so been received from "leasing" airbases and how the amount had been utilised.

He pointed out that the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly had recently sought this information but the defence ministry had declined, saying it was not in the purview of the committee. Earlier, the ministry had refused to answer questions about real estate developers using the name of armed forces.

"The self-serving refusal to trust the PAC is not only a mockery of the parliament, smacks of arrogance and raises serious questions of transparency, but also gravely undermines the public image of defence forces," Mr Babar said.

He said it was preposterous to claim that the PAC was not competent to ask questions that revolved around financial propriety.

"If the PAC cannot ask questions about revenues generated from leasing the airbases and building housing societies in the name of defence services then who can," he asked.

Mr Babar said that under article 78 of the Constitution, all revenues received by the federal government formed part of the Federal Consolidate Fund and all payments and withdrawals from it were to be regulated by an act of the parliament.