ISLAMABAD: Chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Interior Rehman Malik, who was nominated by the house as a coordinator to oversee the 2018 general elections, has urged Prime Minister Imran Khan to order the constitution of a technical committee to investigate the failure of Result Transmitting System (RTS) during the elections.

In a letter to the prime minister, who also holds the portfolio of the interior ministry, Senator Malik said that in response to the committee’s letter about the RTS failure on July 26 the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had directed the Cabinet Division on Aug 2 to constitute a committee consisting of technical experts from the National Telecommunication and Information Technology Security Board (NTISB) and Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) but the notification of the said technical committee has not yet been issued despite the lapse of three weeks.

Second volume of Senate panel’s investigation report to be presented in the house today

“I, therefore, call upon you as the Interior Minister of Pakistan to kindly intervene to have the said committee notified at the earliest,” he said.

The interior minister is the ex-officio member of the Senate Standing committee on Interior.

Senator Malik said that the Senate Standing Committee on Interior’s work was progressing well and the second volume of its investigation report will be laid in the Senate House on Aug 27.

In its reply submitted to the Senate panel, also available with Dawn, the National Database and Registration Authority has informed that the ECP had administrative control of the RTS and the system did not fail or even slowed down and no activity regarding hacking or slowing down of its software was reported.

In response to a request of the ECP to constitute an investigation committee, the Law and Justice Division said that according to law RTS had nothing to do with election results.

Published in Dawn, August 27th, 2018