The Senate Standing Committee on Defence and Defence Production has termed the criticism on the armed forces and sensitive institutions by “so-called media analysts” baseless.
The meeting of the committee was held at the Parliament House on Monday and was headed by its chairman, Mushahid Hussain Syed. Members of the committee including Raja Zafarul Haq, Sehar Kamran, Colonel (r) Tahir Hussain Mashhadi and Farhatullah Babar attended the meeting.
Referring to the Pakistan Army, the committee gave recommendations that unnecessary disapproval of the national assets must be stopped, as it was defaming national institutions all over the world. Mashhadi said no country criticised its own armed forces and sensitive institutions but in Pakistan, the “so-called analysts do so, arguing unnecessarily about the excess of national defence budget. This defames our institutions abroad”.
He said the army and relevant institutions were not taking steps essential for saving the reputation of our sensitive institutions and insisted on the role of the Defence Ministry in this regard. Mashhadi asked why were local government elections not held in cantonment areas even though a big population of civilians lived there. The defence secretary said the affairs of the cantonment areas were connected with the defence institutions and only they had to deal with it.
Defence Secretary Nargis Sethi told the committee that the national defence budget amounted to Rs 545 billion only and 70 percent of this was spent on paying the salaries of the officers and soldiers. The committee directed the Defence Ministry to give a briefing on the defence budget after Eid.