"We reinitiated the process to materialise the $800 million outstanding dues on account of PTCL privatisation last week and would try to find a middle way for the early resolution to the matter. We have also requested Prime Minister Imran Khan in this regard," said Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, Federal Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication, while briefing the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunications (IT&T).
The parliamentary panel met with Rubina Khalid in the chair here on Tuesday where despite repeated directives by the parliamentarians, the IT&T Ministry failed to produce the PTCL privatisation agreement, saying the matter is in the domain of Privatisation Commission.
The senators showed annoyance over the non-production of agreement while saying it is not the Kahuta agreement to hide. The committee decided to ask Privatisation Commission as well as PTCL representatives in the next meeting to brief the body on the matter.
The committee also expressed annoyance over Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) for not timely blocking the Twitter account of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) chief Khadim Hussain Rizvi, while saying that the later used abusive language against national institutions for four days but no action was taken.
Acting Chairman PTA Mohammad Naveen informed the committee that Twitter was approached for blocking Rizvi's account repeatedly, but the response was not good and the account was blocked after four days.
The committee also took notice of the delay in banning of controversial social media account that contributed to creating an anarchic situation in the country. The members strongly recommended pre-emptive measures by PTA and FIA to take notice of anti-state and anti-society activities on social media.
The parliamentarians also raised concerns over fake accounts being operated from India and Afghanistan, which is raising serious questions on rule of law, they added.
The committee also observed lack of coordination between PTA and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) which is resulting in increasing number of cyber crimes.
The committee in its last meeting had given one week time to PTA and FIA to appoint a focal person for coordination between the two bodies and in case there are any procedural hiccups, come up with an alternate solution to ensure proper implementation mechanism of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), 2016.
The committee expressed anger over non-compliance with its earlier directions of bringing proposal to tackle the overlapping jurisdiction of PTA and FIA and PECA, 2016. The PTA and Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication were reluctant to host FIA official while saying that rules needed to be amended.
The director FIA Cyber Wing said that according to section 37 of PECA, monitoring power is with PTA. Furthermore, according to section 48, prevention of electronic crimes is PTA's job. However, member (legal) IT Ministry said that there is no provision that PTA would become a complainant.
The minister also said that there is need to amend overlapping rules and make them easier for implementation. The committee unanimously decided to take action if its recommendations regarding focal persons are not implemented in eight days. The committee also directed the IT Ministry officials to sit with all stakeholders and come up with proposals to amend the PECA.
The committee also discussed the matter of non-payment of increased pension to the pensioners of PTCL by Pakistan Telecommunication Employees Trust (PTET) as announced by the government from time to time. The committee was told that as of now, more than 15,000 retired officials are not getting the increased pension while 343 officials received their pensions after the Supreme Court ordered PTET to pay them. The committee directed PTET and PTCL to do the necessary calculations in 15 days as to how much amount is needed to make the pending payment and what amount will then be required to keep the PTET fund alive for the upcoming years.