ISLAMABAD: Responding to a briefing from National Telecommunication Corporation (NTC) officials during a meeting of a parliamentary committee, who said their organisation is spending 80pc of its revenue on human resources, PPP Senator Rehman Malik recommended that an inquiry should be held into why the NTC is unable to optimise business and is losing staff.

During a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology, the senator said the NTC spending 80pc of its revenue on human resources is a matter of concern.

He asked the officials for details of business strategies over the last five years and future development plans for the next ten years.

The committee was meeting to inquire into possible irregular appointments in the NTC. Member of the committee observed that an “incompetent” NTC management was unable to retain its employees.

The NTC is the official information technology and telecom service provider for the government and has been mandated to provide telecom and ICT services to armed forces, defence projects and federal and provincial governments. The NTC has been providing secure, efficient and high tech ICT services to the public sector.

According to the corporation’s officials, the number of NTC employees has gone down from 3,055 to 2,350 in the last decade and some 950 have retired during the same time for various reasons.

“In some of the cases, employees had completed their terms and in others, they were not familiar with technological advances,” said information secretary Rizwan Bashir.

The senior official explained that dependency on the human workforce was declining due to advancing technologies. The committee observed that employees left for secure jobs elsewhere due to the lack of a secure working environment and growth opportunities.

“This is particularly true for contractual employees whose services have not been regularised even after working at the NTC for a decade,” said chairman of the committee, Awami National Party Senator Shahi Syed.

Senator Syed directed the NTC to regularise the services of contractual employees.

Joint Secretary Ministry of Information Technology Syed Khalid Gardezi informed the committee about the shortcomings in service regulations at the NTC.

“The government has already asked the NTC to revisit its service regulations. However, the regularisation of contractual employees will have to be done according to government policy,” Mr Gardezi said.

The committee referred the audit objections on account of irregularities while making recruitments and promotions in the NTC to the Public Accounts Committee.

Published in Dawn, October 11th, 2017