NA body for seizure of accounts of defaulter IT companies

The National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Information Technology (IT) and Telecom on Thursday directed the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) chairman to seize accounts of all defaulted firms and include the names of owners of the defaulted companies on the exit-control list (ECL) to set a precedent.
Expressing serious concerns over non-recovery of outstanding dues, Barjees Tahir, the chairman of the committee, criticised the defaulters, saying that such companies were plundering the public money and taking it to abroad.
The committee, which met at the Parliament House, stressed the officials of the Ministry of IT and Telecom to take immediate steps to recover the defaulted amount and bring the culprits to justice.
Tahir said the names of the owners of the said companies must also be included in the ECL.
He asked the ministry’s authorities to take notice of removing the PTCL telephone exchanges. He said there were reports that the PTCL administration was removing telephone exchanges terminating its employees. He said Pakistan could not afford such losses by giving 24 percent shares of the PTCL to foreigners.
During the briefing on the country’s IT Policy, the committee said there were many delayed projects causing financial loss to the national exchequer. The policy must conform to objectivity and result-orientation, it said, adding that targets must be set so that they could be achieved.
The committee also asked to suspend licences of the concerned long-distance and international (LDI) operators.
Briefing the committee, PTA Chairman Dr Muhammad Yaseen said LDI operators had challenged AP Rules in a high court.
However, the court gave its decision in favour of the PTA. The PTA had to recover Rs 41 billion of which Rs 15.9 billion were outstanding. The committee asked the PTA to wait for the report of the public accounts committee (PAC) and maintained that the said companies’ accounts should be seized.
Yaseen said the operators had moved the Supreme Court and the matter was now pending with the court. He said meanwhile, the PTA had issued orders for suspension of licences of WorldCall, Wisecomm, 4-B Gentle, Multinet and Red Tone for non-payment of dues but the high court had issued stay orders against the PTA decision.