National Assembly's Defence Production Committee has summoned a joint meeting for a discussion on obtaining an NOC from the Ministry of Defence Production before purchase of any defence/security-related equipment by the federal and provincial governments. An in-camera meeting of Defence Production met under the chairmanship Muhammad Moeen Wattoo on Thursday.
The committee also decided that the PEPRA representatives and Chief Secretaries would be invited from federal and provincials government in this regard. DGP (Army) would also be called in the next meeting of the committee. The committee reviewed the performance of Directorate General Defence Purchase (DGDP) during the year 2015-16 including a number of contracts concluded, issued and future vision.
The committee members were apprised by Major General Naveed Ahmed, Directorate General Defence Purchase (DGDP), Ministry of Defence Production. He said that the MODP has traditionally been responsible for procurement of equipment and supplies for all three services. And once DP Division was given the status of the Ministry, entitled as MODP, Directorates of Procurement ie DGP (Army), DP (Navy) and DP (Air) were placed under the administrative and financial control of service headquarters.
He further said the organisational structure of DGDP and its function a such as procuring major defence equipment through local and foreign vendors in accordance with the approved requirement of equipments by the services headquarters (Army, Navy and Air Force) and implementation of contracts as per its clauses. The committee appreciated the efforts of the DGDP under the supervision of Minister for MODP and his team. The committee recommended that the MODP should be allowed for appointment of lawyers' firms for handling the issues of DGDP/MODP immediately.