ISLAMABAD: A sub-committee of the National Assembly’s Standing Com­­­mittee on IT & Telecom has sou­ght details of the agreement about the privatisation of the Pakistan Tele­communication Company Ltd (PTCL).

A meeting of the sub-committee presided over by its convener Sher Ali Arbab on Monday was informed that a parliamentary body could seek details of documents that had not been made public.

The representatives of the PTCL management and officers of the IT ministry told the meeting that the PTCL was privatised after the signing of an agreement between the governments of Pakistan and the UAE in 2006.

As a result, 26 per cent strategic shares were sold to Etisalat Telecommunications Company with management control, while 62pc shareholding was with the government of Pakistan and 12pc shares had been floated to general public through the Karachi Stock Exchange (now Pakistan Stock Exchange).

The sub-committee has been formed to discuss ‘usurpation of the rights of PTCL employees after 2008, by the management’.

Employees say company has introduced its own policy about promotions, increments and pension

PTCL EVP Zahida Awan and SEVP Sikandar Naqi informed the meeting that all the pensions were being paid by the Pakistan Telecommunication Employees Trust (PTET) and there was no independent grievance of employees over the issue of salaries or pension.

Ms Awan said the telephone and telegraph department had been converted into Pakistan Telecommu­ni­cation Corporation from 1991 to 1995 and in 1996 it was transformed into PTCL. The PTCL was privatised in 2006 and the management was handed over to Etisalat.

She said that the pension issue was managed by the PTET and the PTCL made its contributions to it. She added that if the pensions were hiked as per the increase made by the government for its retired employees, the impact would be a shortage of Rs41bn for the PTET.

After several queries by the members of the sub-committee, Mr Naqi said: “We suggest that the government may take over the pensions of retired PTCL employees and the PTCL would continue to contribute its share in it.”

However, the PTCL employees attending the meeting showed some documents to prove that the ministry of IT & telecom and the PTCL management were not following the law.

Sardar Aurangzeb, representing the PTCL CBA union, showed government notifications that the PTCL would have to follow the T&T service rules. He also said that all salary and pension structure of PTCL employees had been at par with the government policies up to 2010, that is four years after Etisalat took management control.

Mr Aurangzeb said that the PTCL management had introduced its own policy related to promotions, increments and increase in pensions since 2011 but any such policy had to be legally recognised by the government as per the Pakistan Telecommuni­cation (re-organisation) Act, 1996.

He said that the other option was to follow the law and implement salary and pension increase as per the government policies.

The sub-committee’s convener ruled that details of PTCL privatisation needed to be studied, and decided to call the federal secretaries of law, finance, IT & Telecom and privatisation in the next meeting.

The meeting was informed that profit of PTCL in 2004 prior to privatisation was more than Rs29bn, but it was mere Rs7bn in 2018. The IT ministry was directed to provide financial results of PTCL from 2001 to 2019 in the next meeting.

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2019