Foreign Office allocates Rs 0.5 million for Kashmir cause

Author: By Rana Mushtaq

ISLAMABAD: The foreign office has allocated two million rupees as funds for the purchase of Mercedeze Benz car tyres and 0.5 million rupees for the promotion of the Kashmir cause in the world. This has been revealed in an audit report submitted to the parliament for scrutiny.

The author of this report has asked the parliament to assess and ascertain the priorities of our foreign office baboos who are at the helm of foreign office affairs and are allocating public funds for various projects. Kashmir is the country’s jugular vein in the national narrative but the foreign office has put it at the bottom of its priority list. The audit report 2014 reveals that Mercedeze Benz cars which Sartaj Aziz and Tariq Fatimi are using while serving in the foreign office will be consuming more than two million rupees on the purchase of their tyres.

The Foreign Office has also earmarked 1.4 million rupees for the purchase of POL products that are necessary material for operating Mercedez Benz cars as the PM’s advisers on foreign affairs are using them.

The foreign office has allocated 48 million rupees for the training of foreign diplomat s in the Foreign Office Academy.

The Rangers deployed at the Pakistan and India border along Punjab and Sindh province have been given 18 million rupees for protecting the security posts.

The Parliamentary Committee on Public Accounts is likely to start the probe into funds allocated to the foreign office which is the first bastion to protect the country’s national interest.

The report also mentions that the foreign office purchased 1800 pole silk flags at the D,8 summit at a cost of 6.60 million rupees and only one private firm was engaged for this purchase.

The report also highlighted the irregularities in the disbursement of allowance to the senior diplomats that caused 5.6 million rupees loss to the national exchequer. The report further reveals that during the last year the foreign office has incurred 5.56 million rupees on protocol measures while gifts worth 0.228 million rupees given to dignitaries were declared an unauthorised act.