PPP calls for shift of military’s businesses to private sector

• Senator Farhatullah proposes military to restrict their commercial, industrial activities to weapons, defence sectors

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Senator Farhatullah Babar called for a gradual and planned shift of businesses and commercial activities from the military to the private sector to make the indigenous industry viable and economical.

Taking part in a discussion on a motion moved by Senator Mohsin Aziz, he proposed curtailing the range of Milbus (military in business) activities to projects in defence and weapons only. Recently, the Senate learnt that there were more than 50 Milbus enterprises in the country ranging from cement, fertilizer and sugar production to banking to real estate to aviation to bakery products to literally everything under the sun.

But answers to critical questions like contracts awarded without bids and loans written off were not available, the lawmaker pointed out. The distortion in the playing field in industrial production by Milbus was a reality that needs to be investigated and addressed, he said. He said that the contracts for toll collection involving tens of millions a day was awarded to the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) without bids.

The National Logistic Cell got away neatly when a bridge built by it in Karachi collapsed on the day it was to be inaugurated. According to a 2007 book Military Inc, the military’s net worth at more than 10 billion pounds. “This was many times over the total foreign direct investment generated by Pakistan that year,” Senator Farhatullah said.

He said that many of the country’s largest corporations worth billions were controlled by the security establishment involved in literally every industrial activity. Recently, the Senate learnt that there is also Askari Airlines although the minister said that he was not aware if it also was part of the Askari business conglomerate, he said.

Discrimination against local industry and private entrepreneurs and the absence of a level playing field is a factor impeding industrial progress in the country. After 2013 elections, the Iranian president had advised the revolutionary guards to restrict their commercial and industrial activities to weapons and defence sectors and called upon the government to realistically review industrial policies, he said.