Ms Siddiqa, and many others like her, negatively raise hue and cry over the defence forces eating up country’s...
RAWALPINDI: This is with reference to Ayesha Siddiqa’s latest article, “Is making money a sin?” (June 5). Her comments about arms procurement decision-making are lopsided. Does she want civilian industrialists to decide what the defence forces should have on their inventory or should this being a specialised job, be left to specialists in the armed forces?
If the current prime minister could set up a steel mill in Saudi Arabia, then why can’t steel mills be set up in Pakistan? After all, steel is an important component of defence equipment.
Defence forces have their own organisations to build tanks, armoured personnel carriers, arms and ammunition, ships and aircraft. Where does the civilian industrialist come into the picture? We all know that our prime minister is the third biggest investor in the UK and has business interests spread all over the world. While rightly questioning his source of income to set up big projects, why has Ms Siddiqa not mentioned him as one such industrialist who is not even interested in investing in Pakistan?
The writer criticised military organisations like the Army Welfare Trust, Fauji, Shaheen and Bahria Foundations for setting up factories and doing business but then her article stops short of the nature of disbursements made after earning profit. Had she highlighted that aspect of the ‘money-making’, a lot of doubts and misconceptions would have been removed from the minds of the general public.
These welfare foundations are a very limited source of job opportunities for so many retiring officers and soldiers who otherwise have to live on their meagre pensions. The jobs so provided are tenured to give equal opportunities to a few out of the thousands of military pensioners. The head offices and factories of these foundations are also avenues of placement for a large number of civilian technical staff, hence contributing, albeit in a small way, to the overall uplifting of the living standards of the workforce.
Ms Siddiqa highlights the cement and sugar factories run by the armed forces but I fail to understand why she doesn’t talk about the many schools, colleges, hospitals and vocational training centres set up by the same foundations. She should also take into account the massive reconstruction done by the Corps of Army Engineers in Federally Administered Tribal Areas/Malakand division.
The Pakistan Army has suffered colossal losses in terms of men and material since the start of the ongoing war on terror thrust upon us by the rogue Americans. Is it the state which is looking after the families of the thousands of shaheeds and the crippled-for-life veterans of the war on terror or the armed forces themselves? From where do the armed forces fund the massive cost of their rehabilitation? Of course, these charitable military foundations come to the rescue.
Ms Siddiqa, and many others like her, negatively raise hue and cry over the defence forces eating up the country’s budget. I have a serious reservation with Ms Siddiqa’s thinking that peace with India would make the armed forces redundant. At what cost would this peace come about? I would also propagate for peace with India but not before resolution of issues like Kashmir, Siachen, Sir Creek, funding terrorism and most importantly of all, the water issue which is drying up our rivers and gradually converting Pakistan into a wasteland.
Major (retd.) Talaat Khurshid
Published in The Express Tribune, June 7th, 2014.
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