Pakistan military eyes key role developing giant copper and gold mine

[Zulfiqar]

ISLAMABAD: The Senate was provided on Wednesday details of commercial entities being run by various wings of the armed forces in the country.

In a written reply to a question asked by Senator Farhatullah Babar of the Pakistan Peoples Party, Defence Minister Khwaja Asif informed the house that there were nearly 50 “projects, units and housing colonies” functioning in the country under the administrative control of Fauji Foundation, Shaheen Foundation, Bahria Foundation, Army Welfare Trust (AWT) and Defence Housing Authorities (DHAs).

According to the details provided in the reply, eight DHAs were established in major cities. These DHAs — mostly created through ordinances — are in Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi-Islamabad, Multan, Gujranwala, Bahawalpur, Peshawar and Quetta.

Besides, there are 16 “projects/units” functioning under the AWT, 15 under the Fauji Foundation and 11 under the Shaheen Foundation.

The house was informed that Bahria Foundation was not administrating any housing colony in Pakistan, “however, an offshore tolling type LNG project is under its consideration”.

Bahria Foundation not administrating any housing colony, Senate told
The projects/units being run by the AWT are:

1. Two stud farms in Pakpattan and Okara
2. Army Welfare Sugar Mills, Badin
3. Askari Project (shoe and woollen), Lahore
4. Army Welfare Mess and Blue Lagoon Restaurant, Rawalpindi
5. Real estate comprising three small housing schemes in Lahore, Badaber and Sangjani
6. Askari General Insurance Co Ltd Rawalpindi
7. Askari Aviation Services, Rawalpindi
8. MAL Pakistan Ltd Karachi
9. Askari Guards (Pvt) Ltd, head office (HO) in Rawalpindi
10. Askari Fuels (CNG) with HO in Rawalpindi
11. Askari Seeds, Okara
12. Askari Enterprises, Rawalpindi
13. Fauji Security Services (acquired from Fauji Foundation), HO in Rawalpindi
14. Askari Apparel, Lahore
15. Askari Lagoon, Faisalabad.

The projects/units under Fauji Foundation are:

1. Fauji Cereals
2. Foundation Gas
3. Fauji Fertiliser Company Ltd
4. Fauji Cement Co Ltd
5. Fauji Oil Terminal and Distillery Co Ltd
6. Fauji Kabirwala Power Company Ltd
7. Foundation Power Co (Dharki) Ltd
8. Askari Cement Ltd
9. Askari Bank Ltd
10. Foundation Wind Energy (I and II) Ltd
11. Noon Pakistan Ltd Lahore
12. Fauji Meat Ltd
13. Fauji Fertiliser Bin Qasim Ltd
14. Fauji Akbar Partia Marine Terminal Ltd, HO in Karachi.

A company under the name of Pakistan Maroc Phosphore SA was set up in Morocco by the Fauji Foundation in 2008.

Similarly, the projects, units and housing colonies under the administrative control of Shaheen Foundation, which is a trust of the Pakistan Air Force, are:

1. Shaheen Airport Services
2. Shaheen Aerotraders
3. Shaheen Knitwear
4. Shaheen Complex, Karachi
5. Shaheen Complex, Lahore
6. Shaheen Medical Services
7. Hawk Advertising
8. Fazaia Welfare Education School System
9. SAPS Aviation College
10. Air Eagle Aviation Academy
11. Shaheen Welfare Housing Scheme, Peshawar.

The Senate was told that Shaheen Foundation was established in 1977 under the Charitable Endowment Act 1890 “to promote welfare activities for the benefit of serving and retired PAF personnel, including civilians and their dependents, and to this end generate fund through industrial and commercial enterprises”.

Turkish people supported
Later, the house unanimously passed a resolution expressing solidarity with the democratic government and people of Turkey. The resolution was tabled by Azam Swati of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf.

“The Senate admires, congratulates and pays its tribute to the brave people of Turkey who displayed an uncommon courage by upholding democratic norms and defeated military coup and saved their country from anarchy and civil war,” says the resolution.

“It was so moving to see common Turks took to the streets and world witnessed that human flesh stopped steel tanks on just a single call of its leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan,” says the resolution, which “admired all opposition political parties for their historic and unprecedented resolve to protect democracy.”

During the question hour, Law Minister Zahid Hamid informed the house that India had made 460km-long fence along the Line of Control (LoC).

He said the issue of LoC violations by India had been raised at the UN Security Council through a letter that had also been circulated among all its members.

Question here is do military run more efficiently answer is no ,All these projects enjoy certain leverages which are not for private entities ,also this deviates military from core work as well

Do you see the key words Trust/Foundations/Endowments? Read up on them and their purpose.

Most of these entities are managed under the trust/foundation entities. As such they are legal and pay for the beneficiaries of that Trust/Foundation. They are also allowed in other countries as well.

They help in reducing the reliance on government budget which the white elephants managed by the government fail to do so. The result is circular debt in hundreds of billions (please don't blame army for it).

About the farms owned by the army. Well many such farm lands were allotted in british pre-independence era. They help in self sustaining the local units.

The government can go ahead and close all these but can they increase the budget and tax revenue to cover up for lost funds.

Having also dealt with several government departments, I beg to differ.

Private companies enjoy plenty of leverages. You just are not seeing it.

I have seen personally how many companies instead of doing capex for expansion in own factory just create a new company and set up a factory in another duty free zone. They use the new company's license to import duty free/concessionary raw material for both old and new company (along with resale in local market). Sometimes they also just reduce production from the older company and transfer the machinery to the new unit. The new company gives back the initial investment+profits in a few years and they repeat the cycle in another industrial zone.

They then take the profit and invest in malaysia, UK, Dubai e.t.c

One of the reasons our industrial capacity is not increasing exponentially as local players just do the above activity and take the profit to offshore tax free zones.

I can give plenty of examples of such types of activities being done by the private businesses in collusion with law makers and regulatory bodies. However, that would need a separate thread.

 

[volatile]

Do you see the key words Trust/Foundations/Endowments? Read up on them and their purpose.

Most of these entities are managed under the trust/foundation entities. As such they are legal and pay for the beneficiaries of that Trust/Foundation. They are also allowed in other countries as well.

They help in reducing the reliance on government budget which the white elephants managed by the government fail to do so. The result is circular debt in hundreds of billions (please don't blame army for it).

About the farms owned by the army. Well many such farm lands were allotted in british pre-independence era. They help in self sustaining the local units.

The government can go ahead and close all these but can they increase the budget and tax revenue to cover up for lost funds.

Having also dealt with several government departments, I beg to differ.

Private companies enjoy plenty of leverages. You just are not seeing it.

I have seen personally how many companies instead of doing capex for expansion in own factory just create a new company and set up a factory in another duty free zone. They use the new company's license to import duty free/concessionary raw material for both old and new company (along with resale in local market). Sometimes they also just reduce production from the older company and transfer the machinery to the new unit. The new company gives back the initial investment+profits in a few years and they repeat the cycle in another industrial zone.

They then take the profit and invest in malaysia, UK, Dubai e.t.c

One of the reasons our industrial capacity is not increasing exponentially as local players just do the above activity and take the profit to offshore tax free zones.

I can give plenty of examples of such types of activities being done by the private businesses in collusion with law makers and regulatory bodies. However, that would need a separate thread.

Dear kindly dont talk of budget as already we know how much we spend on the institution ,just lets not gothere ,Also if this is for welfare and to end reliance on Govt why still pensions are paid from exchequer accounts ?

 

[Zulfiqar]

Dear kindly dont talk of budget as already we know how much we spend on the institution ,just lets not gothere ,Also if this is for welfare and to end reliance on Govt why still pensions are paid from exchequer accounts ?

As a percentage of GDP, low.

Pensions get paid like any other expense because the profits don't cover the whole amount of welfare.

You do realize that the standing army is more than 500,000. The retired personnel number is even higher.

As an example go read the financials of PTCL and how much assets do they have in their pension fund via PTET relative to number of beneficiaries.

This will give you an idea on how much assets are required to cover a million plus beneficiaries.