Proposed US aid favours military

The assistance to Pakistan may be challenged as several congressmen would prefer a cut.

KARACHI: A look at the foreign assistance proposed by the US administration for Pakistan in its 2012 budget gives an insight into that country’s role in the region and its interest in seeing the elimination of militancy and terrorism in Pakistan.

The biggest beneficiaries of the aid – which amounts to over $3 billion – is the Pakistani military and law enforcement agencies, which will receive $1.67 billion if the budget is approved by US lawmakers. While data is not available on how much of this would go to Pakistan’s armed forces, the total for the accounts of foreign military financing, international military education and training and the Pakistan counterinsurgency capability fund is $1.5 billion. The counterinsurgency capability fund alone is 39 per cent of the total assistance.

Funding for education and infrastructure dominate with $450 million and $260 million respectively of the total $3.053 billion. The Obama administration has also proposed funding for agriculture (four per cent of the total assistance), economic opportunities, trade and investment as well as for health programmes about tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and nutrition in Pakistan. The US is also investing in Pakistani politics, with $15.2 million proposed to fund ‘Political competition and consensus-building’.

According to budget data available from 2006-2010, the US had approved funding of over $2.5 billion for counter-terrorism, combating weapons of mass destruction, counterinsurgency and stabilisation operations and security reforms.

However, the proposed assistance to Pakistan may be challenged. Several members of the Republican Party, who now wield a majority in the US Congress, would like to see a cut in aid to foreign countries. According to Foreign Policy’s The Cable blog, Congressman Ron Paul is seeking support for an amendment to the 2011 fiscal bill that would end foreign assistance to Pakistan as well as Egypt, Israel and Jordan.

The US administration has asked Congress not to cut aid programmes.

US officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have also stressed on the Pakistani government to bring the elite into the tax net. At the US Global Leadership Coalition conference last year, Clinton said: “On taxes, for example – it’s one of my pet peeves - countries that will not tax their elite who expect us to come in and help them serve their people are just not going to get the kind of help from us that historically they may have.”

The disproportionate funding to the Pakistani military may serve the strategic interests of the US’ and also reflects the imbalance seen in Pakistan’s federal budgets. The 2010-2011 budget included Rs442 billion for defence affairs and services as compared to Rs34.5 billion for education and Rs7.3 billion for health.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 18^th, 2011.