Islamabad: Director General of Pakistan Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Athar Abbas has said that the usage of funds in civilian departments should be streamlines instead of criticizing the defence budget.
The DG ISPR said the army performs its duties as per the government policy. He said to ascertain the size of the army is also government’s job. Army has to prepare itself according to defence capabilities of the enemy. No army in the world can disclose its development budget to the public, he said.
“If civilian government consider that they could diminish the perils through negotiation with India, then the reduction in army could be taken place”, he added.
General Athar said that several agencies from some foe countries have been working to create the gap with between the army and public. Anti-Pakistan elements are trying to prove that army is a burden on the national development by criticizing the armed forces.
He said that under well planned conspiracies, misleading propaganda is being proliferated about the high expenses of Pakistan Army. The conspirators are saying that the funds related to defence could be used for prosperity of the country.
“Apart form all plots against army, I would like to say that forces always perform their duties within the framework given by the sitting government”, he added.
He said that the budget of defence forces consisted of two parts. The portion regarding maintenance funds can be discussed at every forum but the segment of the budget relating to development can not be publicized as the enemy could get idea that in which areas the development is going to take place, so this portion is always kept in secrecy.
The DG ISPR was of the view that as far as facts and figures is concerned; the analyzing of budget would reveal that the defence budget has decreased ratio-wise. At present, the ratio of defence budget is 14 percent to the national budget.
Some elements are creating the misunderstanding that defence takes 40 percent of the total budget. He asked that the budget is not misused which is allocated to the other civilian department.
He said that army presented its report about the presence of thousands of ghost schools as well as fake teachers in Punjab and later regarding this it was said that the system has been corrected.
He said that Pakistan is allocating only $4 billion on defence whereas India’s defence budget is $ 36 billion. “We have to look that our enemy is how much strong and how much the capability it has before designing our preparedness. We would have to see that what kinds of weapons it is making. Keeping in view all the facts the defence budget as well as ability is increased”, Athar added.
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