ISLAMABAD:
In two equally significant moves, the government has decided to determine a fresh base price for auction of 3G spectrum licences and constitute an independent oversight committee to allay increasing transparency concerns in about a billion-dollar deal.
The new base price for the 3G licence will be determined by a consultant of international repute that will be hired soon through an advertisement, according to sources in the Ministry of Information Technology.
Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf has already issued directives for publishing advertisements for hiring the consultant, who will design the auction programme.
Earlier, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) had set the base price at $210 million for the 3G licence with bid earnest money of $31.5 million without hiring a consultant. By this account, the total base price of three licences stood at $630 million while the government expected to fetch a maximum $900 million to $1 billion.
However, information technology experts and parliamentary panels on IT termed the value too low, arguing that the auction could earn at least $2 to $3 billion keeping in view the country’s population.
Senator Pervez Rasheed, the spokesman for the PML-N, had also questioned the transparency of 3G auction by pointing out in a Senate session that the $210 million base price was much lower than $290 million fixed for 2G licence.
The sources said the premier has given a four-month deadline to complete the transaction, which was originally planned to be completed by March this year. The process of 3G auction had started in November 2011 and then prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani had also given a four-month deadline.
According to the sources, the government has decided to form an oversight committee that will work as a watchdog to monitor the consultant and PTA to ensure transparency. They added the government will soon issue a notification in this regard. The committee will comprise one member each from the media, civil society and Transparency International Pakistan.
Terms of reference of the committee are not immediately clear. It is also not clear whether its members will be allowed to sit in meetings of the Auction Supervisory Committee (ASC), headed by Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh. The ASC was also constituted to ensure transparency and take the auction process forward in a coordinated way.
The ASC, having three economic ministers as its members, struggled a lot last fiscal year to keep the transaction on track. But despite all efforts it could not ensure transparency and lately the government had to start the whole process from scratch.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 29th, 2012.
COMMENTS (10)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
Pakistan should cut the 3G and go for 4G or 5G as 3G is already obsolete everywhere. Unless someone in govt want to make doubel the money in kick backs.
@ Awan: We are talking about 3G in mobile, not 3G dongles etc. 3G mobile will enable us to even use internet, tablets in villages in Pakistan. It will create opportunity of Pakistani apps on android, ios platform.
@Mehboob: Mr Mehbood kindly read my above comment. We have WIMAX, W-CDMA and EDGE and why should we ashamed then??. Go and study in which Generations these techs lie. The Ignorant Pakistani media have any Idea that what is WIMAX and in which generation it is. Also Our Ignorant should stop saying 2G again and Again as EDGE available in GSM is Pre 3G or 2.5 G not exactly 2 G.
@DevilHunterX: Because this is newsforum not some technical forum to discuss these issues. Most of the people even dont know what is meant by 3G and infact in Pakistan 2G is already upgraded to Pre 3G known as EDGE ( Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution ) . Those people who are saying that Pakistan never had any 3G and 4G are absolutely wrong. Already WIMAX and W-CDMA 2000 services are available and WIMAX other than the Backhaul for 2G falls into 3G and even in 4G and CDMA-2000 is also a 3rd Generation technology. Apart from that 3G Femtocell technology deployed in some Office Environments in Pakistan is also 3rd Generation and according to some technical standards it is 4G as it provides support for LTE as well.
@Awans: You will be amazed to know Afghanistan has implemented 3G, now we are even far behind than Afghanistan.
@Awans: You didn't answer his question.
@Mehboob: 3G UMTS could be upgraded easily to LTE 4G so i dont think it is much problem at all.
Why is it taking so long to bring 3G to Pakistan. When countries are implementing 4G we are still on 2G.
For consistent telecom growth, enegry crisis must finish..To make the equipment operational on Generators instead of Wapda source is extremely expensive and in the environment of comptetion it becomes even more tougher for investors to invest more
If you will raise the base price no one will go for it. Operators are not expecting to gain alot from 3G.