In-camera briefing on buying French submarines demanded

ISLAMABAD: The opposition party, Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) in the Upper House on Thursday demanded an in-camera briefing to the senators on the government plan to buy submarines from France instead of Germany.
Senator Jamal Leghari of the former ruling PML-Q while speaking on a point of order strongly opposed to government plan to buy submarines from France instead of Germany at a costly price.
He informed that Pakistan Navy had sent a summary to the President recommending buying submarines from Germany, but he regretted that the President rejected the summary and decided to purchase these from France.
He said that there would be one billion rupees loss to the national exchequer to go into agreement with France for purchasing the marines instead of Germany. He said that Germany has a latest technology and also a cheapest offer against the French old technology, which would also be costly. Therefore, he added that there was not need to undertake new agreement with France.
Pakistan had agreed to buy three Type 214 German submarines under deal worth more than $1 billion (773.7 million euros) that the two countries were expected to sign last year.
Leghari demanded an in-camera briefing of the Navel Chief to the Senate on buying the submarines saying that the House should betaken into confidence before going into any agreement with the French government.
Another senator of the PML-Q, Tariq Azeem also backed the demand saying that it was an important issue and the house should be taken on board in the in-camera briefing.
The presiding officer Tahir Hussain Mashadi, however, referred the matter to the Defence Committee of the House for further discussion, because of the absence of the minister concerned as well as Leader of the House at that time.