‘Give us our money or we’ll withdraw’

A top defence official revealed that he had warned the US Secretary that Islamabad would wind up its operations.

ISLAMABAD: A top defence official on Thursday revealed that he had warned the US Secretary of State for Defence that Islamabad would wind up its operations in tribal regions if Washington did not release money owed to Pakistan under the Coalition Support Fund.

Secretary Defence Lieutenant General (Retired) Syed Athar Ali told the Public Accounts Committee that the US government had withheld billions of dollars disbursements of the CSF from Pakistan for two years. He said he had had to warn US Defense Secretary Robert Gates that: “The time that we have to rethink our security priorities about external threats is approaching. We will stop operations and will go back to the (eastern) borders.”

Ali said that the military was losing its stamina and the US government was not releasing “our money”.

“Before 2001 Pakistan was relatively a peaceful country. Those who are responsible for the violence in Pakistan are now ordering us to do more,” said PAC Chairman Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan.

The US government had  been disbursing CSF money to Pakistan since 2002 when Islamabad became a partner in fighting the war on terror.

However, it halted the disbursement process in 2007. The US began giving Pakistan the funds again in the second half of this fiscal year and eventually released $1.3billion. However the US still has to give Pakistan over $1billion.

Senior Assistant to the US President David Lipton refused to comment on the Defence Secretary’s statement. He said that President Barack Obama’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, was coming to Islamabad on soon and he would address the issue.

During the meeting Ali also said that the government had not provided the armed forces with a sufficient defence budget. Against our defence needs of Rs488 billion, the government has allocated Rs442 billion to us, which is less than the actual requirement, he said.

“The armed services continue to strive for more funds”, said the general.

The Public Accounts Committee also regularized over Rs10 billion in excess expenditures of the Ministry of Defence, incurred during the financial year 2007-08. Compared to the allocated budget of Rs274 billion the ministry spent Rs287 billion.

“It’s a phenomenal excess and it is very rare that the PAC is asked to settle such a huge amount in any given year,” said the chairman. He said the Indian and the British armies are also in the state of war but their budgets never exceeded from their allocations because they respected the sanctity of their budget.

The defence secretary said that Rs4.9 billion over the allocated budget were spent because the government increased salaries but did not provide a supplementary grant. He said that Rs423 million had to be given as compensation to families of deceased soldiers. “Due to the increased movement of troops, as many as 147,000 personnel, an amount of Rs575 million was utilised only on account of transport and miscellaneous charges,” said Ali.

Published in the Express Tribune, June 18^th, 2010.