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| October 15, 2003 | Wednesday | Sha'aban 18, 1424 |
PC objects to PTA appointments
PESHAWAR, Oct 14: The Privatisation Commission (PC) has raised objection to the appointment of two members of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) who are on deputation from the Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL).
Reliable sources said that the PC had raised certain reservations last month about the appointments of the two members, Nehmatullah Khan (member finance) and Naseem Ahmad Vohra (member technical), and these objections were conveyed to the PTA by the division.
The PC is of the opinion that under the concerned PTA law no person could be appointed as members of the authority who is having direct or indirect financial interest with any establishment which provided telecommunication services in Pakistan.
Sources said that in its letter sent to the PTA through Cabinet Division the PC has asked the PTA that the two members should resign from it, otherwise their continuation a member PTA is illegal.
IT is learnt that as the privatisation of PTCL is in progress, therefore the PC considered the presence of its employees as members of the PTA, which regulates the telecommunication services in Pakistan, as inappropriate.
Under section 3(2) of the Pakistan Telecommunication (Re- organization) Act, 1996, the authority shall consist of three members one of whom shall be a professional telecommunication engineer and other shall be a financial expert, to be appointed by the federal government for a term of four years.
The two members were appointed in May this year through a notification issued by the Establishment Division. Now apart from the chairman of the authority, Shahzada Alam Malik, rest of the two members are employees of PTCL who were serving in the PTA on deputation, the source added.
An official of the Cabinet Division, who did not want to be named, said that now correspondence was going on between the PTA and the division over the issue as the two members were reluctant to relinquish their jobs in the PTCL and had also put forward certain reasons in support of their contentions.
When contacted a section officer of the Cabinet Division, Shahid Khan, conceded that the PC had objected over the appointments of the said two members. However, he stated that no where in their advertisement, or the summary sent to the prime minister, or the appointment notification of the two members, the word deputation was used.
He said the two members had claimed that relinquishing of their posts in their parent organisation was only required for appointment against MP (top Management Professional) scale posts and not against national pay scale posts. They claimed that as the post of the member was of basic pay scale 19, therefore it was a national pay scale and they need not resign from the PTCL.
Official of a cellular phone company told Dawn that the situation would place the PTA in an awkward position if any of the licensee of the PTA, against whom an order was passed by the authority, challenged it before the superior courts. He added that the law was very clear and even a person having any close relative in a telecommunication service could not become a member of the authority.
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