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ISLAMABAD: How the Pakistan Army bulldozes the civilians
whenever any financial fraud is detected, even if
it is years old, has become evident from what happened
with some of the files of military purchases which
came to the Auditor General of Pakistan.
These files were provided to the AGP office when
it conducted a special audit on Defense Procurements
for the five-year period 1990-95.
The concerned military authorities first provided
the secret files containing the details of military
purchases from different countries including France,
USA, Germany, UK and Sweden. But within hours these
secret files were physically snatched from the auditors.
They were forced to evaluate the deals based only
on what they could remember after they had a look
at the details for a very brief time.
This audit of major deals was done in 1996 and its
report was never made public nor it was submitted
to the Public Accounts Committee for examination.
This important report, which found huge irregularities,
was dumped.
The Directorate General of Defense Procurement (DGDP)
is a joint venture organization under the Ministry
of Defense and the Defense Production Division,
responsible for the procurement of Defense stores
from local and overseas resources. It is also responsible
for formulation of policies for the procurement
of Defense services.
According to one report obtained by SA Tribune the
DGDP concluded a Contract no 1341/63/DGDP/PC 3 c
with MS Land Rover Exports Ltd., UK on June 30,
1996 for procurement of 1,047 Land Rover Defender
90GS Jeeps at the rate of $20,889 plus 5 per cent
for spares and 15 per cent for freight charges.
But it was observed from the United Field Motors
vehicles catalogue, issued by the manufacturers
in April 1996, that the same Land Rover Defender
90 was being sold at the rate of £9,675 each. For
large orders of 100 units or more, quantity discount
was also to be considered by the suppliers on case
to case basis. Thus, it appeared that DGDP purchased
the vehicles at a rate much higher involving an
extra expenditure of $6.856 million.
The scandalous part of the entire case is that the
case file of this deal was first supplied to auditors
but withdrawn after a few hours and never produced
again despite several requests. Non production of
record to auditors was in itself a serious irregularity.
Similarly a much higher rate was paid in May 1993
to an authorized agent of the Ministry of Defense
of the Republic of Belarus. The seller offered a
price of US$ 825 but the Army paid $1,199 per piece
of equipment to the firm.
In another case, three old Cessna aircraft were
purchased while a much better offer was available
from Learjet for 1993 models.
The AGP has asked the government to constitute an
inquiry committee to look into these serious irregularities
in the Defense purchases. |
