PAC stops transfer of PTCL property to Etisalat

ISLAMABAD: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Wednesday stopped the government from transferring property of Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) to Etisalat without recovering of $800 million.
The PAC also directed the Privatisation Commission to give a detailed briefing to the committee on the privatisation of PTCL and also bring the agreement for privatisation of the PTCL with Etisalat next week.
Besides, the PAC also directed the Privatisation Commission for making a presentation on all transactions made so far. The PAC was held with Syed Khursheed Shah in the chair. Secretaries presented progress report of DAC meetings held by their respective ministries/divisions/departments since December 2013, number of audit paras examined pertaining to various audit reports of main PAC and its sub-committee.
The PAC expressed dismayover the briefing of the additional secretary Privatisation Division, Javed Sukhaira, when he told the committee that the Etisalat owns 26 percent shares of the PTCL and now the government was going to transfer all of its properties.
PAC Chairman Syed Khursheed Shah restricted the government from transferring the properties of the PTCL which spread throughout in the country. “How the property of billions of rupees of PTCL can be transferred to Etisalat when they still have to pay Rs80 billion,” he said.
The officials of the department of the Auditor General of Pakistan revealed to the committee that the AGP could not make audit the accounts of the PTCL under the agreement the government made with Etisalat.
On this, Shah directed for stopping the process of the transferring of the PTCL property to Etisalat till the situation is made clear.The PAC also expressed its dismay over the performance of the Foreign Ministry with regard to settlement of the audit paras and recovery of amount and directed it to present details of the pending audit paras.
Secretary Foreign Affairs Aizaz Chauhdry told the committee that around 560 audit paras are yet to be discussed in the PAC.The PAC also expressed its dissatisfaction over the performance of provincial PACs and directed to write letters to provincial PACs for the settlement of the audit paras related to those ministries which were devolved to the provinces.