Senate body briefed on defence budget

ISLAMABAD: Denying Inter-Services Intelligence’s (ISI) meddling in politics, Defence Secretary Lt General (Retd) Asif Yasin Malik Monday claimed that there has not been any political cell in Pakistan’s spymaster for the last five years, Geo News reported.
He said this during a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Defence and Defence Production held under the chair of Senator Mushahid Hussain Syyed.
He laid these details bare while talking to the media after the meeting here.
According to the minutes of meeting the defence secretary also presented the defence budget for the current fiscal year before the committee.

Mushahid Hussain said that the defence budget for the current fiscal year was Rs545 billion.
He added that out of this total Rs264 billion had been allocated to the Army, Rs114 billion Air Force, Rs52 billion Navy and Rs92 billion would go to ISI, the joint staff headquarter, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) and defence production.
The committee was also told Rs195 billion portioned for the pensions of ex-army was not a part of this budget.
The defence budget is 17 percent of the national budget and 2.3 percent of the total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Pakistan.
The committee was also told that defence production units paid taxes worth Rs28 billion every year.
The committee also learnt that that regular audits were conducted in all defence institutions, along with the ISI.
Mushahid quoted the defence secretary as saying that Pakistan had received Rs12 billion from US since 9/11, but no payments were made for renting Shamsi air base.
The defence secretary also told the committee that drones used to take off from the Shamsi base when it was under US control. The committee was told that US conducted drone attacks from Shamsi air base with Pakistan’s consent.
It is pertinent to mention that the base was been sub-leased to the US by the UAE on Oct 20, 2011 with the approval of then president of Pakistan Gen (Retd) Pervez Musharraf. It was vacated by the US on Dec 11, 2011.

Source of News: http://www.geo.tv/GeoDetail.aspx?ID=72482