Came across this article, thought of sharing it with “patriotic Pakistanis” 
Pakistan’s military, long notorious for its stranglehold over politics, has as pervasive a presence in the country’s business and commercial enterprises. While the military’s political and administrative influence is well known, public knowledge of its vast corporate interests is still limited, especially outside the country.
The military is the single largest player in the Pakistani economy today, active in a wide variety of commercial enterprises engaged in production of items ranging from breakfast cereal, sugar and cakes to cement, pharmaceuticals and fertilizers. The military’s commercial empire, worth billions of dollars, includes a number of transport, construction, real estate, insurance and communication enterprises, steel and power plants, banks, an airline, an FM radio station, a pay-TV channel and hundreds of educational institutions.
The core of the military’s business empire is a group of four foundations - the Fauji Foundation, Army Welfare Trust, the Shaheen Foundation and the Bahria Foundation. Dr Ayesha Siddiqa-Agha, a Pakistani defense analyst, points out that though the four foundations were set up ostensibly for the welfare of retired military personnel, this “role has since long taken a back seat. The growth and mode of operations of these foundations now indicate an urge at empire building and providing perks and privileges for senior officers.”
While the Fauji Foundation comes directly under the Ministry of Defense, the Army Welfare Trust is under the General Headquarters, the Shaheen Foundation under the Air Force Headquarters and the Bahria Foundation under Naval Headquarters. The activities of the foundations are designated as “corporate ventures”. They control some of the largest listed companies on the Karachi Stock Exchange. Companies run by the foundations enjoy special privileges, like access to prime real estate, easy bank credit, tax breaks and subsidized electricity. Not surprisingly, they routinely beat civilian companies in contract bids.
Of the four, the Fauji Foundation is the oldest and the country’s largest business conglomerate. Indian defense analyst Rahul Bedi describes it as the “jewel” in the Pakistani military’s crown. Headed by a three-star general, it provides “womb to tomb” benefits for nearly 9 million retired military personnel and their dependants. These benefits include preferential hiring of ex-servicemen for jobs at the Fauji Foundation’s wholly owned companies and subsidiaries.
The Pakistani military operates both in the public and private sectors. In the public sector, it has the National Logistic Cell (NLC), the country’s largest trucking and transportation service, and the Frontier Works Organization (FWO), a construction giant. The NLC is believed to be the army’s most profitable operation. Like the FWO, it is fully controlled by the Army General Headquarters. Established by former dictator General Zia-ul Haq in 1978, the NLC’s fleet of trucks played a vital role in transporting the Central Intelligence Agency’s weapons into Afghanistan in the 1980s and later in supplying the Taliban with food, fuel and weapons.
Prime real estate is made available to defense housing authorities at throwaway prices. How these prime properties fall into the hands of the military is worth recounting in some detail, if only to illustrate how the military occupies civilian property and grows rich at the cost of the people. In an opinion piece in the English-language daily Dawn, Farhatullah Babar outlines how the military took control of a private housing society, the Lahore Cantonment Cooperative Housing Society. Babar points out that “when the society began flourishing, army authorities took forcible possession of it. On a complaint, the registrar of Cooperative Societies ordered that elections be held but the occupiers of the society did not allow elections for 10 years. In 1999, the military authorities ‘persuaded’ the provincial government to issue an ordinance, the Defense Housing Authority Lahore Ordinance 1999, to formalize the takeover. The ordinance was promptly challenged in the Lahore High Court on the ground that the provincial legislature cannot legislate on matters relating to defense.”
While the matter was still pending in courts, the provincial government introduced the ordinance in the form of a bill. It was pending in the assembly when the military took over in a coup in October 1999 and the assemblies were dissolved. Under Article 117(2) of the constitution, a bill pending in a provincial assembly lapses on the dissolution of the assembly. Thus the bill lapsed and the Lahore Cantonment Housing Society was revived. But the army authorities did not allow the society’s members to perform their statutory functions and kept allotting plots to military officers. Barely three weeks before the general elections of 2002, a presidential order was issued on September 19, 2002, under which the Defense Housing Authority, Lahore, was set up. This order was subsequently indemnified through the 17th amendment in the constitution, thus giving a pseudo-legal basis to the military’s takeover of the society.
Such pieces of prime real estate are then distributed among military personnel at throwaway prices. It is among the many perks and privileges of being a part of the Pakistani military. The Army Welfare Trust, which is spearheading the attempt to appropriate and occupy A-grade agricultural land being tilled by around a million peasants in Okara, is facing fierce resistance. But the military is using severe repression and intimidation to quell the protest.
The military justifies its vast business empire as a contribution toward national development. Facts indicate otherwise - public funds are being channeled into the generals’ bank accounts. Siddiqa-Agha argues that most of these business ventures are actually running at a loss, with the generals siphoning off funds from the country’s annual defense budget to make up the difference.
Losses are said to be higher in ventures that are fully managed by retired and serving military personnel. Far from contributing to the country’s socio-economic development, the military’s commercial enterprises are a heavy drain on public funds.
Some of these military-run enterprises have won praise from international banks and organizations for their efforts to eliminate corruption. However, as Tariq Ali points out in the New Left Review, “Many of these enterprises have been engaged in corruption, although scandals usually erupt only when civilian businessmen get too greedy in exploiting the opportunities they offer, or when the fall of a government exposes their shady deals. [Former prime minister] Benazir Bhutto’s spouse Asif Zardari was implicated in shortchanging the air force’s Shaheen Foundation in a dubious media venture. In another case, it emerged that a private businessman had bribed senior naval personnel in defrauding the Bahria Foundation over a land development deal.”
But recently, President General Pervez Musharraf came out in fierce defense of his military’s vast business empire. He dismissed critics of the military’s role in business as “pseudo-intellectuals”. Like everything else the military does, its business dealings are evidently above public scrutiny and reproof, and enjoy immunity from public accountability.