PPP moves NAB against vice chief of army staff

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) said on Sunday it had filed a petition against General Tariq Majid, the chief of general staff, and General Ahsan Saleem Hayat, the vice chief of army staff, for allegedly “causing financial losses to the national exchequer through corruption” and demanded action against them under Section 10 of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) Ordinance.

Amir Fida Paracha, a member of Provincial Assembly, filed the petition on behalf of the PPP with the NAB chairman on September 7, 2005, according to a PPP statement.

The petition says that the media reported “a quick fire restricted tender No 1338/49/TI Sight /DGDP/PC, dated June 17, 2005, was advertised by the defence director general for buying 900 thermal image sight fire control system units for the main battle tanks, Al Khalid and Al Zarar, T-85 and T-80U”. The petition says, “This was ostensibly done because the Weapons and Equipment Directorate (W&ED) of the General Headquarters (GHQ) had already pre-qualified and short-listed two French companies, Sagem and Thales.

The trial included a draft contract and commercial and technical offers, which the W&ED sought on May 24 and 26, 2005, from these two companies and both gave their offers and were pre-qualified and short listed by the GHQ.”

“The first technical offers were opened and evaluated by the technical departments, I&E and ITD Directorates of the GHQ, and after two hours both were declared technically qualified with four technical observations made on Sagem’s offers and 35 technical observations on Thales bid.

The most significant difference in the two offers was that Sagem’s bid for the Generation-3 (G3) TIS Units, while Thales offered the older Generation-2 (G-2). The tender had asked for both types although the G-2 is almost obsolete.” The whole day documents were being prepared for the final award, but later the commander-in-chief ordered the deal be called off. This was because of the leakage of the deal by the press. The next day Thales was declared a defaulting company because it had not fulfilled its contractual obligations on the submarine deals.

The petition states, “The above facts and grounds respondents have shown wilful indulgence in corrupt practices under Section 9 of the NAB Ordinance.” nni

Home | National