NUZHAT NAZAR

ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Defence has assured the National Assembly Standing Committee on Defence that the ministry does not have any concern over sharing the details of defence budget and spending with the Parliament.

The committee met here with MNA Sheikh Rohale Asghar in the chair on Tuesday. The committee considered budgetary proposals of the Ministry of Defense relating to Public Sector Development Program (PSDP) for financial year 2018-19 and approved them unanimously.

However, the committee raised eyebrows on lack of information about defense budget to the Parliament.

The chairman committee said that Parliament can only access details regarding the defence budget that is enclosed within the Public Sector Development Program (PSDP). “Why can we not access other details?” he asked.

“We are ready to share main points and important information regarding the defence budget,” replied Secretary Defence Lt-Gen Zamirul Hassan (retd), adding that the ministry has no qualms about sharing budget details for the Army, Air Force and Navy.

The committee recommended to Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform to include 31 new unapproved and 4 ongoing projects, with estimated cost Rs31,683.163 million, of Defence Ministry in the PSDP and also allocate the requisite funds for the ongoing and new approved schemes in order to complete the development schemes in time.

The issue of Pakistan’s map also came under discussion as the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJ&K) was shown disputed area on the map of Pakistan. The committee members lambasted the Defence Ministry’s use of the wrong map of Pakistan and questioned why Indian Occupied Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) were not included in the map as Pakistani territory. They urged for issuance of “correctly drawn maps” to all the ministries and departments.

In this regard, the secretary defence informed that the issue has already been rectified and the hard and soft copies of the map of Pakistan have already been forwarded to all the ministries/divisions and departments including the Foreign Missions of Pakistan abroad. Thereafter, the committee recommended that the Prime Minister of Pakistan would be requested to issue directions to all the ministries/divisions and departments to display the latest map of Pakistan on their websites.