LONDON (Thomson Financial) - The government has been severely criticised by a group of MPs for not outlining the costs of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and for spending in the current year without parliamentary approval.
The House of Commons defence select committee said it was "entirely unacceptable" that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) refused to show all its estimated annual spending at the start of the financial year as other departments are required to.
The MoD asked for 33.7 bln stg for the current year, but this does not include the expected costs of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and "so greatly underestimates the total expected cost of the MoD's activities in 2007-08", the all-party committee said.
Operations in the two war zones were forecast to exceed 1.7 bln last year, it added.
Committee chairman James Arbuthnot stressed that the committee was not objecting to the costs of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Military operations cannot be done on the cheap, and our troops need to be properly supported in the difficult task that they are doing," he said.
"Our objection is to the fact that the MoD does not show parliament the estimated costs of these operations at the beginning of the financial year, in the way that every other Department is required to."
"We have repeatedly told the MoD that this should change but it continues to act as if it is a law unto itself. Of course, the costs of operations are uncertain, but parliament and the public have a right to know what the MoD is expecting to spend. We are talking about large amounts of public money here."
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