Pakistani army exposed, scams done from purchase to army school, Auditor General reveals

Pakistani Army Exposed : The report of the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) has revealed a scam in the defense sector, which has created a sensation across Pakistan. The report has reported serious financial irregularities, opaque procurement and wrongful expenditure in the defense services. In a report of more than 300 pages for 2023-24, the AGP said that the audit covered expenditure of Rs 566.29 billion. These include Rs 335.63 billion during the second phase of the 2022-23 audit and Rs 230.66 billion in the first phase of the 2023-24 audit. According to a report in the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, the AGP said that issues such as advance payment before completion of works, division of financial powers, non-recovery of rental charges, non-deduction of applicable taxes, violation of public procurement rules, non-compliance with the A-1 land policy and defense service regulations have been identified in the report. Rs 1.563 trillion was allocated for the defence services in the original budget for the financial year 2022-23. However, it was later increased to Rs 1.592 trillion.

There was also violation of purchase rules
The Auditor General in his report has also expressed concern over audit objections over 40 years. He said that efforts to regularize the accounts are inadequate. Giving records from 1985, the AGP said that the Ministry of Defense complied with 659 instructions of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament in 1974, which shows that compliance with PAC instructions is very slow. The performance of the Ministry of Defense Production was also not better, it complied with only 109 of the 372 PAC instructions. The audit observed that procurement rules were violated. In some cases, purchases and contracts were given to favorite contractors or suppliers, bypassing the bidding process.

Advertising has to be done on the website
According to the procurement rules, purchases of more than Rs 5 lakh should be advertised on the website in the prescribed manner. The audit found that several purchases for the financial years 2021-22 and 2022-23 violated these rules. One of these cases was related to an army school. For this, money was spent on the purchase of mess sheds and stores without trainees. Purchase orders were issued to contractors at rates three times higher than the lowest bid.

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