The National Assembly Standing Committee on Information Technology on Friday showed annoyance over adhocism in the Ministry of Information Technology, saying that discriminatory attitude towards the ministry was promoting corruption and big scams.
A meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Information Technology, held under the chair of Ch Muhammad Barjees Tahir, strongly criticised the performance of the Information Technology secretary and said that corruption was prevailing in the ministry while no steps has been seen by him to address it.
The committee also showed resentment over adhocism in different departments of the ministry as most of its attached departments are functioning without their heads and officials are working on contract basis. The committee asked the IT secretary for how much time they would run the business of these departments on adhocism. The standing committee recommended immediate appointment of federal minister for information technology and an end to discriminatory attitude towards the ministry which is paying huge amount of tax to the national exchequer.
The chairman of the committee said that for last nine years the committee has been seeking the inquiry report on the project of establishment of optical fiber transmission link between Keti Bunder and the costal highway while officials are using different delaying tactics regarding it and no action has been taken by the ministry against those responsible for it.
The officials of the ministry are waiting for completion of tenure of the present government so that they would get rid of this situation, the committee observed.
The committee directed the information technology secretary to submit the report on investigation conducted so far in optical fiber case within one month.
The members of the committee advised the secretary to fix responsibility within one month otherwise the matter would be referred to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).
The IT secretary told the committee that Nation Telecommunication Corporation (NTC) is working without its chairman, however, the ministry has given an ad in the newspapers for this post and the process in progress. The committee said that the ministry is just giving ads and no practical work is being done. The committee directed the secretary to give details of process regarding the NTC chairman’s recruitment along with a copy of the ad.
The NA body directed officials to provide all the details about the NTC gateway exchange case which is being referred the FIA on the PM’s orders.
