Here is an article by Senator Farhatullah Babar on the involvement of the armed forces in the corporate sector. It gives details of the influence wielded by the armed forces in Pakistan’s corporate sector and the preferential treatment quasi-military institutions get from the government. I had written a satirical piece titled ‘Real Estate 101 for Army Officers’, which was a humourous way of putting what Senator Babar has said in this article. Do have a look at it after you go through this.
By Farhatullah Babar - April 30, 2007 - Appeared in The News
If the prime minister’s finance adviser thought that by living in denial he could allay the widespread concerns about the army’s growing involvement in the corporate sector he was gravely mistaken. In saying this, I am referring to a report in your newspaper titled ‘Salman denies army role in corporate sector’, and published on April 28.If he did not know it, here is a partial list of the military’s corporate enterprises as recently placed before the Parliament in reply to a question besides the several dozen similar enterprises run by Shaheen Foundation and Bahria Foundation of the Air Force and the Navy respectively.
Fauji Foundation : Fauji Sugar Mills, (more than one), Fauji Cereal, Fauji Corn Complex, FONGAS (Natural gas supply company), Fauji Poly Propylene Products, Fauji Fertilizer Company (FFC), Fauji Jordan Company, Fauji Cement, Fauji Oil Terminal Company Project (FOTCO), Fauji Kabirwala Power Company Limited.
Army Welfare Trust: Askari Stud Farms, Askari Farms, Askari Welfare Rice Mill, Askari Welfare Sugar Mill, Askari Fish Farm, Askari Cement (more than one plant), Askari Welfare Pharmaceutical Project, Magnesite Refineries Limited, Army Welfare Shoe Project, Army Welfare Woollen Mill, Army Welfare Hosiery Unit, Travel Agencies, AWT Commercial Plazas, Army Welfare Shops, Army Welfare Commercial Project, Askari Commercial Bank, Askari Leasing Limited, Askari General Insurance Company, Askari Welfare Saving Scheme, Askari Associate Limited, Askari Information Service, Askari Guards Limited, Askari Power Limited, Askari Commercial Enterprises, Askari Aviation, Askari Housing Schemes (at several locations)
The adviser claimed that retired military officers were involved in private businesses and that too for welfare purposes but is the Fauji Foundation really a private concern like any other.
Under its Scheme of Administration the Fauji Foundation is allowed “to receive from government or other bodies or person any contribution to the Foundation”. Which other private enterprise gets contributions from the government also?
The Fauji Foundation is administered by a committee whose chairman is the defense secretary and its members include four principal staff officers of the GHQ and two senior officers of the Pakistan Navy and the Air Force, all paid out of the public funds. A three star serving general was appointed in 2002 as its chief. What a fine example of a private enterprise run by serving military officers and defense secretary.
During question hour in the Senate last year it transpired that the finance ministry accepted loan liabilities of 9 billion rupees of the Foundation. Which other private concern had been provided such a preferential treatment?
Worse still, after being declared ‘private’ they are declared as unaccountable too. In reply to a question in the National Assembly in 2005 it transpired that the Khoski Sugar Mills belonging to the Foundation had been sold at 300 million to an entity that had not even participated in the bidding process. The highest bid of 387 million was ignored. When the Senate Defence Committee asked the head of the Fauji Foundation, himself a former chairman of NAB, to appear before it he refused and chose to refute the allegations through newspaper ads. We were told to shut up.
If the FF and AWT are claimed to be private entities what are other entities like the Frontier Works Organization (FWO) and the NLC doing in the private commercial sector in a playing field that too is tilted in their favour? According to information placed before the Senate on December 30, 2005 the National Highway Authority (NHA) alone awarded twelve contracts costing
over 18 billion to the FWO without bids between 2001 and 2005.Further, not only the contract of collecting toll tax on toll plazas have been given to FWO and NLC without bids but contracts already given to private parties were cancelled and given to it according to information placed before the Senate.
The military’s growing interests in corporate businesses and land has now begun to attract national and international attention and criticism but we are living in self-denial. That was why the former British High Commissioner in Pakistan Mark Lyall Grant publicly stated about two years ago in Islamabad that the military’s corporate business interests had increased manifold. He also said that it was hampering poverty reduction efforts and effectiveness of the bureaucracy and judiciary in the country. An un-named senior official of the Foreign Office promptly announced that a demarche had been served on the high commissioner for his critical remarks as ‘unwarranted and inaccurate besides being an infringement of diplomatic norms’. But that did not change the
reality.Are the defence housing authorities also really private bodies competing with other private entities in a level playing filed? Is there any other private housing society that is headed by a serving corps commander and whose executive functionaries such as the Administrator are serving senior army officers drawing salary from public exchequer? Is there any other private housing authority that can get land at a price as the DHA Karachi got sometime back and against which the provincial government even moved the court?
During question hour in Parliament it has transpired that military officers get one after 15 years of service, a second one after 25, a third one after 28 years and a fourth one after 33 years of service each worth more than 15 million rupees in the open market. To call it a welfare activity is stretching the meaning of the word a bit too far.
The un-level playing field to the military’s industrial and commercial enterprises, the dispossession of tenants from farmlands in Okara belonging to the Punjab government, the acquisition of additional 870 acres of prime land in sector E-10 at dirt cheap price of Rs 200 per acre for the new GHQ (in addition to the 1470 acres already earmarked), the setting up of strings of defense housing authorities, first in Karachi and Lahore and lately in Islamabad, and converting state lands meant specifically for defense
purposes into golf courses and housing colonies as disclosed in the Parliament are clear manifestations of military’s growing corporate and real estate business. The issue will not disappear merely be denying it.Come on Mr Adviser! Instead of living in a state of denial let us address the issue and do something about it.
The writer is a former PPP senator and a member of the Senate’s human rights committee.
More on the Army………………..
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Launch of book on Pakistan military blocked: author
Thu May 31, 2007 3:16 PM IST
By Robert Birsel
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The Pakistani government has told a top club and hotels in the capital not to host the launch of a book on the Pakistani military’s penetration of the economy, the book’s author said on Thursday.
But author Ayesha Siddiqa, a political analyst and former director of research at the Pakistan navy, said the launch of her book “Military Inc. Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy”, scheduled for Thursday, would go ahead.
“It has been cancelled and all hotels were issued instructions not to give us room,” Siddiqa said, referring to the planned book launch at the capital’s top private club, the Islamabad Club.
“It’s because it’s something against the military,” she said.
Siddiqa’s book tackles the virtually taboo subject of the military’s huge business empire, which she estimates is worth $10 billion.
She said the instructions to venues not to host the launch had been issued by the Ministry of Interior. But Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao and Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani said they were not aware of any ban .
“We’re looking for an alternative. The book launch will happen today,” she said.
The Pakistani military has ruled the country for more than half its history since it was carved out of British-ruled India as a home for Muslims in 1947.
The book’s publication comes at a sensitive time with a campaign for the restoration of full democracy gathering pace since President Pervez Musharraf, who is also army chief, tried to dismiss the country’s top judge in March.
Supporters of the suspended chief justice bitterly criticised the military at a televised lawyers’ seminar on the weekend and the government has filed a legal complaint in response.
The Islamabad Club denied cancelling the launch. It said the organiser, the Oxford University Press, had cancelled it. The publisher’s managing director in Pakistan, Ameena Saiyid, said the club cancelled the launch.
POLITICAL POWER
Siddiqa said the military owns hundreds of businesses across the country, many run by five conglomerates, and it also controls large tracts of land.
The business empire, run virtually without any transparency or accountability, underpins the military’s political power, she said.
“Basically, it’s about penetrating society and its economy. The financial economy is essentially a part of political power,” she said.
The state-run APP news agency put out a report on Wednesday citing unidentified analysts as saying the book was “a plethora of misleading and concocted stories” aimed at giving the military a bad name and creating a rift with the civil sector.
The newspaper said Siddiqa had quoted wrong figures at least 250 times in the book.
Asked about her reaction to the article, Siddiqa said: “I think they haven’t even read the book.”
(Additional reporting by Zeeshan Haider)