ISLAMABAD, Oct 22: Lawmakers on Monday got a rare peep into details of the most debated component of the country’s budget – the defence allocation.
A three-member team of the defence ministry led by Defence Secretary Lt Gen (retd) Asif Yasin Malik made a presentation to the Senate Standing Committee on Defence and Defence Production about the defence component of the federal budget in an in-camera session.
Details of the figures placed before the committee were not publicly revealed.
The country’s defence budget for the current fiscal year is Rs545 billion, which is about 2.3 per cent of the GDP or 17 per cent of the total outlay.
According to the services-wise breakdown, army got Rs264 billion, air force Rs114 billion and Navy Rs52.7 billion. The share of defence production was Rs92.46 billion and that of inter-services organisations, including ISI Rs17.6 billion.
The focus of the presentation was to address misperceptions about defence allocations and its utilisation. A lot of emphasis was put on the multi-tiered system of transparency and accountability that has been instituted to prevent misuse of taxpayers’ money.
The defence budget has long remained shrouded in secrecy and is considered to be lacking transparency, accountability, oversight and civilian control. But since last year the government has started sharing the broader breakdown while laying the annual budget in the parliament.
The presentation, according to a member who attended the session, went one step ahead to disclose details of amounts being spent on maintenance and upgradation of assets and salaries of the personnel.
Briefing journalists, Chairman Standing Committee on Defence and Defence Production Senator Mushahid Hussain said the parliamentary oversight of the defence spending was necessary to ensure good governance and transparency.
With little new details of the budget shared with the media, most of the electronic media reporters latched on to a statement before the committee that ISI’s political cell had been closed almost five years ago and that Pakistan was not paid any remuneration by the US for the use of the Shamsi Airbase till their eviction.