Do the funds requested for the next budget include allocations from the Coalition Support Fund and other military aid?
LONDON: This is with reference to your editorial of May 13 titled “Defence of the nation”. When General Pervez Musharaf grabbed power in 1999, he voluntarily announced a Rs7 billion reduction in the defence budget. Did anyone accuse him of compromising the nation’s security?
Funding must always be available to secure the nation, but defence is more than just military might, and with little by way of oversight or transparency, further allocations to the military are just going to aggravate the already lopsided nature of civil-military relations in Pakistan. Do the funds requested for the next budget include allocations from the Coalition Support Fund and other military aid?
Also, the argument that the budget increase is warranted because of the rupee’s erosion in value makes little sense when juxtaposed with the fact that the dollar-rupee exchange rate has remained more or less stable for the past many months.
Nadir elEdroos
Published in The Express Tribune, May 14th, 2011.
