ISLAMABAD, March 27: The former prime minister and PPP chairperson, Benazir Bhutto, has expressed concern over the reports of Rs40 billion corruption scandal within the army.

In a statement issued by the PPP media cell on Saturday, she said the audit reports of Pakistan Army tabled in the National Assembly on Monday, detailing "financial and administrative irregularities to the tune of Rs40 billion" in the defence budget 2001-2002, had raised fundamental questions about the so-called accountability.

It had also brought into focus deeper issues involving the morale of troops and junior officers as well as the people at large who must be wondering why certain individuals are above the law, she said.

Ms Bhutto maintained that corruption was carried out with impunity under the nose of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) which, she alleged, chose to ignore it.

She said the nation needed good governance and an end to corruption, nepotism and abuse of office. It is high time that the FIA was empowered to deal with the corruption cases, while Parliament acted as a watch dog on its activities as done in other countries.

The PPP chairperson said the FIA must be empowered to deal with all citizens without any dual standards. As such, she called for amendments to the law, allowing the FIA to investigate crimes against all those, whether in uniform, who had committed corruption.

She maintained that accountability had been reduced to a farce as it was used as political arm of the military regime to perpetuate its hold on power.

Ms Bhutto said in October 1999, the military regime promised 'horizontal and vertical accountability of all across the board'. However, during the last four years, accountability remained confined to a handful of the top leadership of the two main parties, while corrupt practices continues unabashedly.

She said the AG's reports tabled in the National Assembly revealed that the magnitude of corruption within the military alone was much more than the combined corruption in several other ministries whose audit reports were also placed before the National Assembly on that day.