Testing times: In a bailout bid, ministry to restructure NTS

Committee will be formed soon to initiate the process

ISLAMABAD: After coming under severe criticism for alleged corruption and financial wrongdoings, the Ministry of Science and Technology has finally decided to restructure the National Testing Service (NTS) in a bid to bail it out of the choppy waters it is in these days.

In a closed-door meeting held earlier this week, the newly appointed Federal Minister for Science and Technology Rana Tanveer Hussain chaired a special meeting called to discuss the issues concerning the testing agency.



After taking charge of the ministry following the resignation of Mir Dostain Khan Domki, Hussain had vowed to rid NTS of corruption.

The news of his alleged involvement in affairs of NTS and Comsats Institute of Information Technology (CIIT) which holds sway over the affairs of the former also angered the minister.

Recently, the minister held meetings with secretary Yasmin Masood and senior NTS management, including Chief Operating Officer Sherzada Khan and the newly-appointed chief executive officer.

Some officials who attended the meeting told The Express Tribune about the internal discussion and probable future of the NTS.

According to sources, it has been agreed that a committee will be formed by the ministry to restructure the NTS, especially its Board of Directors (BoD). Currently majority of the members are employees of CIIT and many of them are going to retire in coming months.

“The purpose to restructure NTS and its BoD is to include experts from public and private sectors to diversify the decision making,” said an official who attended the meeting.

On the directives of its CIIT’s Board of Governors, the NTS in 2016 approached the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), where it is registered as a company, to include new members as ex-officio but a legal glitch has halted the process.

The testing service approached the court after SECP in its audit uncovered misappropriations and irregularities of billions of rupees. The service told the court that SECP was not authorised to conduct their audit.

Meanwhile, the meeting also agreed to clear NTS of all issues surrounding it, including non-payment of taxes, leakage of examination papers in Sindh and internal wrongdoings.

NTS has also approached the Federal Investigation Authority (FIA) to probe the internal staff involved in financial corruption. It has been claimed that millions of rupees have illegally been transferred by NTS employees into their private accounts.

The probe against NTS is also underway in NAB and one of the officials in its Rawalpindi office told The Express Tribune that the probe was at the initial level.

“There are several complaints against NTS and the initial report has been forwarded to the NAB headquarters,” said NAB Rawalpindi office spokesperson Bilal Punnu.

One of the officials of the meeting added that the COO of the company also informed the meeting that several politicians in Sindh, including the HEC’s testing service Education Testing Council, is creating troubles for them.



The ministry is likely to form the committee comprising of its secretary, additional secretary, NTS chief financial officer and COO, along with CIIT acting rector Raheel Qamar.

Earlier this year also, NAB had warned NTS not to use the government logo in their ads and on website as it was not a government-sector testing service and it was also directed to pay the institutions which were made centres for their tests. Since its inception, the body has not paid a single penny to those schools and colleges till NAB intimated it to do.

The HEC formed the ETC on the directives of the Lahore High Court which had declared NTS a private testing company and directed the higher education to form its own testing body which it did earlier this year and conducted tests for universities admission free of cost.