Committee to discuss surveillance aircraft, VVIP planes
By Adnan Rafique

ISLAMABAD—The Senate Committee on Defense and Defense Production meets today (Friday) in the Parliament House to take up the twin issue of purchase of two VVIP aircrafts for the travel of
President and Prime Minister and also the purchase Saab aircrafts with surveillance systems for the Pakistan Air Force from Sweden at accost of over one billion dollars.
Notices have been issued to today's meeting to Defense Minister Rao Sikandar Iqbal, Minister or Defense Production Habibullah Warraich and all members of the Committee that include ruling coalition senators Kamil Agha, Muhammad Akram, Asif Jatoi, Waqar Ahmad Khan, Mushahid Hussain, Mouhim Khan Baloch and Naeem Hussain Chattha and opposition senators Rukhsana Zuberi, Sardar Mahtab Ahmad, Kamran Murtaza and Farhatullah Babar. Senator Nisar Memon is the Chairman of the Committee.
Besides the members Secretaries of Law and Justice, Parliamentary Affairs, Defense and Defense Production along with their respective teams have also been asked tto attend the meeting.
The last meeting of the Committee lasting several hours was held on December 2 but remained inconclusive as it could not complete even the first agenda item of purchase of VVIP aircrafts. After the conclusion of the previous meeting the Senate secretariat issued a press release saying that the questions raised by the opposition members were satisfactorily replied. This contention was however promptly denied by three opposition members of the Committee namely Rukhsana Zuberi, Sardar Mahtab Khan and Farhatullah Babar who issued a separate joint press statement expressing 'surprise and dismay' over the official claim.
The three opposition members joint statement said, "The purchase of VVIP aircrafts was the first item on today's agenda, the other being the purchase of Saab aircrafts from Sweden. Because of some serious questions and concerns raised by the opposition even the first agenda item could not be concluded today and it was decided to adjourn the meeting till written replies to the issues raised were furnished by the Defense Ministry". It went on to add that the official press release claiming satisfactory resolution of the purchase of VVIP aircrafts was "a serious breach of the understanding between the government side and the opposition today with regard to going to the press about what transpired in the meeting".
The opposition's 'surprise and dismay' prompted the Senate secretariat to withdraw their press release claiming that questions raised had been satisfactorily answered but it was already too late for the withdrawal..
We believe that the explanation given for the purchase of two new aircrafts for use by the VVIPs was not convincing to justify incurring heavy expenditure at a time when the nation was seeking donations for earthquake reconstruction", the opposition members maintained.
Among the questions raised by the opposition is whether there was a force majeur clause in the contract agreement under which the deal could be cancelled at this stage without loss to the government and divert resources towards reconstruction. They also raised questions about the balance of liability on both the seller and buyer in the event of cancellation of deal. Satisfactory answers to these and other questions duly supported by relevant extracts from contract documents have yet to be made available to the Committee, the opposition members maintained. The December 2 meeting was a closed door meeting and media was barred from attending. The opposition had also staged a token walk out to protest against keeping the journalists off from the meeting.