No political meddling by ISI now, Senate told

Defence Secretary Lt Gen (r) Asif Yasin Malik on Monday said the political cell of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had been disbanded five years ago, adding that no such cell was operative ever since and the agency was not interfering in political matters.
During an in-camera meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Defence and Defence Production, Malik said no political cell was operating in the ISI at present nor was it working when General Ahmad Shuja Pasha was the ISI DG.
Talking to reporters later, committee chairman Mushahid Hussain Sayyed said the defence secretary informed that the US had conducted drone attacks from the Shamsi base while it was in its use, adding that the attacks were carried out with the government’s approval. The base had been sub-leased to the US by the UAE with the approval of then military ruler Pervez Musharraf. It was vacated by the US on Dec ember 11, 2011. The defence secretary also presented before the committee the details of the defence budget for the current fiscal year. He told the committee that the defence budget for the current fiscal year was Rs 545 billion, of which Rs 264 billion had been allocated to the army, Rs 114 billion to the air force, Rs 52 billion to the navy and Rs 92 billion to the ISI, the joint staff headquarter, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) and defence production.
The defence secretary said regular audits were conducted in all defence-related institutions, including the ISI. Malik said the US had paid Pakistan $12 billion since 9/11, adding that, it had not made any payments to Pakistan over its use of the Shamsi air base. He said since the resumption of NATO supplies from Pakistan to Afghanistan, the US had resumed military aid to Pakistan. He said the coalition support fund was not credited to the GHQ directly but went to the Finance Ministry. The Finance Ministry then gives this amount to the Defence Ministry which distributes it among the armed forces, he said.
Malik said an amount of Rs 105 billion was paid to the retired armed forces officials as pension which was not part of defence budget but paid out of civilian budget. He said the training of armed forces was under scholarship and the expenditure was borne by the US. To a question, he said the Defence Ministry paid Rs 28 billion to the government in the shape of taxes. The committee chairman said a national security strategy would be prepared and for this purpose, proposals would be sought from the Defence Ministry.