Islamabad: The unprecedented economic crisis has forced Pakistan to cut down heavily on its defence spending, the all-powerful military of the country has acknowledged publicly.
Major General Ahmed Sharif, Director General of Inter-Services Press Relations (ISPR) and chief military spokesman, has said the defence budget of the country, in terms of allocation, stood at the lowest level in the country’s history.
Addressing a press conference, he said the allocation of 12.5 per cent this year for the defence was in view of the economic situation of the country.
“We must understand a few things — the deduction in the defence budget is according to the overall economy of the country,” Maj Gen Sharif said yesterday.
Talking in the context of the deep economic crisis facing the country, the military spokesman said, “The Army, Air Force and Navy do not consider themselves to be separate from the country or its economy.”
Stating that the armed forces were in the “belt-tightening” situation, he said the military was fulfilling its requirements through “self-reliance instead of foreign procurement”.
Pakistan, which is on the brink of a total economic collapse, has been left with negligible foreign reserves and thus with no scope of importing anything, including the military equipment.
The broke country has been pleading with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to lend it money but the global agency has been playing tough even as the 6.5 billion dollar Extended Fund Facility agreed to in 2019 is set to expire on June 30.
For releasing any money, the IMF has set conditions for Pakistan like sweeping economic reforms and sharp cut in the military spending.
The Pakistan government, in its Budget presented on June 9, announced certain reforms but the IMF was not satisfied, saying Islamabad missed the opportunity to broaden the tax base in a more progressive way and that the long list of new tax expenditures further reduced the tax system’s fairness.
The global body said the new tax amnesty announced in the Budget ran against the IMF’s conditions and governance agenda and created a damaging precedent.
The IMF said the Budget needed to be refined before it is passed, forcing the government to revise it even as Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif held back-to-back meetings with the world body’s Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva in Paris last week.
