Though the Senate Standing Committee on IT and Telecom is set upon chiding Universal Service Funds (USF), the charges being leveled against the funds are seemingly old allegations that have already been addressed.
The current charges by Senator Faisal Raza Abidi and Senator Zahid Khan are more or less the same allegations leveled against the fund by the same committee under the chairmanship of now federal law minister Senator Mola Baksh Chandio. Sources informed that all the charges were efficiently answered by the USF management leveled by the committee under the chairmanship of Mola Bakhsh Chandio. An interesting fact is that both the senators who have been alleged of the charges were also members of the then committee.
The fact that similar charges that had already been answered and explained by USF were brought up again pointed towards a certain bias against the funds, sources said, adding that both the said senators have not submitted their documents of proof to the committee against the corruption in USF.
‘One thing that has to be noted here is that the then committee under the chairmanship of Mola Bakhsh Chandio had cleared the USF from the charges of corruption, yet once again the senators are trying to disrupt the growth of the funds,’ sources added.
In the last meeting, the committee headed by Senator Idrees Khan Safi formed a sub committee to probe into huge irregularities at the Ministry of IT (MoIT) managed USF, while ruling party Senator Syed Faisal Raza Abedi said that USF was being managed by an illegally appointed Chief Executive Officer who was involved in Rs4 billion scam and no action was taken against him.
Senator Zahid Khan of ANP too supported Abedi’s claims and said that the board of directors of USF consisted of contractors who share among themselves all projects, while he also claimed that that the committee had twice called USF CEO Pervez Iftikhar to appear before the committee but he has defied the orders.
Due to this stand off, many projects of USF are awaiting the approval of the annual budget of the funds for almost a year, and this is one of the reasons why allocation of amount for different projects of funds increases with the Ministry of IT, which in turn creates issues both for the funds and the ministry, sources added. It is pertinent to mention that the total amount of annual funds with the ministry of IT is Rs43billion, out of which Rs17billion is dedicated to the USF for spreading the benefits of the telecom revolution to all corners of the country and also to promote the development of telecommunication services in un-served and under-served areas throughout the length and breadth of the country. When asked, CEO USF Pervaiz Iftikhar said they would submit their answers to the charges leveled by the committee as soon as the committee asks for it, and we are ready to clear any misunderstanding about the transparency at the fund.
