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Thursday March 28, 2024

PAC body told PTCL owes millions to IT ministry

By Asim Yasin
October 04, 2019

ISLAMABAD: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Subcommittee was informed that the PTCL owes millions of rupees to the Ministry of Information Technology (MoIT) for the last one decade.

The PAC Subcommittee directed the Ministry of Information Technology to recover Rs633.54 million from the PTCL, which were pending since decade.

The PAC Subcommittee meeting was held with the chair of its Convener Senator Shibli Faraz in which the audit paras related to the Ministry of Information Technology for the year 2010-11 were examined.

PAC member Syed Naveed Qamar said if the government members in the PTCL board will act as a deaf and dumb then how the ministry will recover its due from the PTCL. “When four members of the government who sit in the PTCL board cannot able to recover the dues then why they sit there,” he said.

The Ministry of Information Technology Secretary said that he will raise this issue in the board meeting. He further told the committee that the revival programnme of Telephone Industries of Pakistan was presented before the cabinet, which has accorded the approval and now it has been also excluded from the list of the Privatisation. “The Financial adviser for the revival of the TIP will be appointed soon,” he told the committee.

While examining the two audit paras relating to Special Communication Organisation (SCO), the audit officials told the committee that the SCO has made expenditure of over Rs170 million additional to their budget allocations.

The Ministry Information Technology secretary told the committee that there was no irregularities in these expenditure as these were sent to the Finance Ministry for getting the approval from parliament. The SCO officials told the committee that this expenditure was made due to raise in the salaries and perks of army in that year (2010-11).

The Subcommittee defer the audit para till the approval of the expenditure from the National Assembly.