Sorry to burst your little bubble, but..
Firstly, welfare is the duty of the government, not the military.
It becomes the military's duty when the govt fails to do it. It also becomes military's duty when people like you expect the Army to be compatible with the contemporary armies and also be as professional as those armies whose budget for uniform allowance alone is 10 times our entire defence budget, BUT at the same time your likes, yikes on paying for the defence expenditures!! If we had been just managing our affairs through what you pay us through your TAXES we would have been screwed since long now. How? i can list down atleast 5-10 combat items which are not provided by the mighty GoP for the troops fighting in FATA since the past 3 years, instead these items were made guud through either the pockets/pays of Officers and Men or through the the funds generated by the same projects you feel so bad about.
Secondly, large portions of these commercial ventures are tax exempt, or their finances are not open to public audits.
No they are not.
The commercial ventures of the army are simply treated as any other commercial projects in this country. By this definition it would mean something like that if the army is running a gas station, it's getting the fuel from contractors at lower rates, or the land procured for the constructing of Askari Bank was subsidized etc, but guess what, it didnt! Moreover, a huge amount of revenue is generated for the govt through these projects in the garb of the taxes these projects deposit. So yes, all of these projects are taxed in the normal manner:
Same 'ol tale of myths - some more insight:
Armed Forces contribute nothing towards National economy.
Armed Forces contribute an average 60-70% of the allocated budget annually, towards National economy by way of taxes and foreign remittances. Army contributed Rs 146.8 Bn against budget allocation of Rs 146 Bn for year 2009/10.
Army is involved in commercial/ business activities.
All commercial/ business activities undertaken by Armed Forces are approved by the Government, essentially aimed at welfare of serving/ retired personnel of the Armed Forces. These projects hardly compensate for allocated deficiency and furthermore, substantially contribute towards National exchequer in shape of taxes. (AWT alone pays billions of Rs in taxes each years).
As for the 'public audit', well FYKI, all these projects are audited in the similar manner as any other (govt) institution (like the Army or the civilian bureaucracy/DMGs/District govts) or the business corporations are audited. If you still doubt it, may be you can visit your nearest Askari Bank branch.
Thirdly, this creates a conflict of interest as the military is directly competing with civil ventures, and with unfair advantages.
Isnt it always guud to have competitions and resist monopolies? Hadnt it been for DHA, Bahria would have been a lame consortium for you people to enjoy. Oh BTW, if you didnt know, DHA and Bahria are already undertaking a joint venture
Also how would you define 'conflict of interest'?
BTW, when i was selected for a foreign course, i was categorically ORDERED that i should get my tickets through Askari Travels who in turn would ensure that i fly PIA. And the reason was that the sarkari paisa should go back to the sarkar - by flying the national airliner. Had this not been told to me, i was already saved money to fly Emirates.
And what's with the 'unfair advantages' thingy? Do you know how difficult it was for the DHA to procure land for Askari 11 or whatever dont remember now (the one that's plus of the new Lahore airport towards the indian border)? The locals resisted, as usual, the land prices increased manifold when it was known that DHA would be venturing here, a few people even went to the court and the DHA guys had to wait and pay whatever the land owners demanded. i didnt see any 'unfair disadvantage' in this, did you? Yeah..., now i know where the problem lies....
Fourthly, it exposes serving personnel to undue influences not only in their inevitable dealings with the public sector, but also within the armed forces as political jockeying for "lucrative" positions.
That's lame! Seriously, it seems as if in an attempt to add just one more point to your list you simply lost it and came up with this babble.
Anywaz, every commercial projects is run either by CIVILIANS or RETIRED MEN! This in turn ensure post retirement utilization of militarymen (this includes the tri services retirees) and increased employment rates for the civilians. BTW, how many times did you see a uniformed guy sitting as the branch manager in Askari Bank? Or a serving fauji running some outlet of Askari Travels? Except NLC (which the COAS has already shunted:
Kayani tells NLC to stop posing as defence agency | Latest-News | DAWN.COM) and the FWO (which indeed is primarily for fulfilling the military's requirement of road/route construction), you wont see a serving fauji managing the commercial ventures. The number of serving guys involved in all this can be counted on your finger tips, and if that bothers you, may you continue being bother in future also. Only the AG's branch at GHQ make sure that the civilian running the projects behave as the army wants them too.
