Last year a book by Ayesha Siddiqa made a lot of buzz. It was titled: Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy . She first introduces the concept of Milbus.
“‘Milbus’ refers to military capital that is used for the personal benefit of the military fraternity, especially the officer cadre, but is neither recorded nor part of the defence budget … in most cases the rewards are limited to the officer cadre… The top echelon of the armed forces who are the main beneficiaries of ‘Milbus’ justify the economic dividends as welfare provided to the military for their services rendered to the state.”
It then goes on to shed some light on organizations that are pilfering public money. At the very top is the military of course. A book Military Inc. by Aisha Siddiqa portrays the situation of the Pakistani military. Buttressed by numbers and statistics it reiterates what has been intuitively obvious to the nation all these years – the military is skimming a lion’s share of the budget in the name of national defense and it does that through propagating some myths. The military over the years has become a conglomerate of diverse businesses that usually runs its operations surreptitiously under the guise of either foundation for the benefit of veterans or as national or private businesses. Take for example Fauji Foundation. It has declared 25 projects and assets worth $169 million. Apart from transparent projects like these there are others that are run under the aegis of the public sector but are nearly fully controlled by the army. Examples include the National Logistic Cell that is one of the biggest freight handlers in Pakistan and Frontier Works Organization which is the biggest contractor in the country for constructing roads and collecting tolls. Staffed by army engineers, it comes under the administrative control of the Ministry of Defense. If you think that these spoils are shared equally by all the military personnel then you are mistaken. It is the top echelon of officers that fills their coffers. All this is done through propagating the notion that the military runs business in Pakistan most efficiently and it is not only most adept at cleaning up the political problems left by civilian governments but also indispensable which according to the book is baseless.
