Spectrum auction: Senate panel summons information minister

Questions why minister changed his earlier stance

ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology (IT) on Monday decided to summon Federal Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid for “backtracking from his earlier stance” regarding the spectrum auction.

During the tenure of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Rashid had raised reservations in the Senate regarding an advertisement by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on January 24, 2012. The advertisement was titled, “Invitation for Expression of Interest (EoI) with applications for auction of mobile cellular license/spectrum of 3G/4G/LTE”.

However, it seems the minister had a change of heart, as the Senate Standing Committee on IT was told that Rashid was no longer interested in pursuing the case due to changed circumstances. The parliamentary panel took serious exception to this conduct and demanded an explanation.

“We have decided to issue a notice to the minister to appear and convince the legislators regarding the circumstances under which he changed his mind, and why he wants to dispose of the matter now,” said the committee members to Anusha Rehman, who is overseeing IT affairs as a key member of the Nawaz-cabinet. Rehman was told to convey this to Rashid.

However, Rehman asked if the complainant (Rashid) was no longer actively pursuing his complaint, why the Senate standing committee members were so actively pursuing the matter.

“We are pursuing it actively because an impression is being created that the process initiated during the previous setup was incorrect, but the same has become right with the change of the regime,” said Panel Chairman Senator Muhammad Idrees Safi in his response.

Presenting the other side of the story, PTA officials said the auction was carried out by the authority in accordance with the provisions of the PTA Act (amended 2006). Therefore, there has been no violation of the law in this instance.

Another parliamentary panel, the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on IT, also recently grilled PTA for poor quality of services of 3G and 4G technologies by cellular companies.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 11^th, 2014.

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