Mr. Farooq Awan
Federal Secretary IT & T, Mr. Farooq Awan is likely to be the new Chairman of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA). For the purpose, he has been appointed as 3rd Member of the PTA, a requirement that must be fulfilled to become the Chairman of the Authority. The other two members of PTA are Dr. Khawar Siddique Khokhar who is serving as member technical whereas, Shabbir Ahmed is taking care of issues as member finance. According to Telecommunication (Re-organization) Act, 1996 which was later updated in 2006, a Chairman must be selected from within the members who are to be three in numbers.
Government of Pakistan reserves all the rights to amend the Act and increase the number of members at any given time.
After the appointment of Farooq Awan as the member, hopes are now bleak for both, Dr. Khawar and Shabbir Ahmed for their nomination as Chairman.Sources reveal that in a day or two, Farooq Awan will be given the charge to head the authority. Since he will not be able to remain Secretary IT & T during the period he is member or Chairman of PTA (most likely) therefore, his process of leaving the ministry of IT&T is underway.
Sources also disclosed that Syed Nasrul Karim Ghaznavi ex-member of finance at PTA who was earlier suspended by Ex- PM Yousaf Raza Gilani on account of his alleged involvement in the corruption cases and undue favors to operator is likely to be restored as Member Finance in the coming days after having cleared from all the charges. It is to be noted that Ghaznavi faced allegations of corruption of billion of rupees but nothing has been proved so far against him. Whereas, Ex-Chairman Dr. Yaseen who was reportedly behind all the allegations himself facing sever corruption charges.
We have reports that recently Mr. Ghaznavi called upon PM Raja Pervez Ashraf who has shown interest in former and directed him to be a part of 3G licensing in Pakistan.
Earlier last week, PM Raja Pervez Ashraf termed 3G licensing in Pakistan as “Lifeline for the Government”. He said this prior to a high level meeting which was attended by Qamar Zaman Kaira, Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, Minister for Finance, Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar, Minister for Water and Power, Asim Hussain, adviser on Petroleum, secretaries for IT, Finance, Law and Justice and other government officials.
In the meeting Prime Minister shown disappointment over the performance of PTA with reference to 3G licensing in Pakistan and related home work. He directed all the government departments to avoid unnecessary confrontation over this very important issue and execute the entire process in the coming few days.
It was decided in the meeting to immediately hire the consultancy firm that will assist government bodies prior to 3G licensing in Pakistan. PTA was directed to advertise in the media for hiring of firm.
In order to keep the process crystal clear, PM directed PTA to seek the list of experts from the Ministry of IT&T who will become a part of evaluating team for analyzing the Expression Of Interest (EOI) from the interested consultancy firms.
According to media reports, PTA was found to be biased by Auction Supervisory Committee (ASC ) when it shortlisted four consultancy companies through a process termed dubious by ASC.
3G licensing seems to be on priority agenda as PM is personally appointing his trusted officials for an early execution. The seriousness and personal interest of Prime Minister is quite evident from the fact that a Federal Secretary (Farooq Awan) is being posted as Chairman PTA – a post much lower in rank.
People privy to the matter say that another reason to downgrade Farooq Awan is not only the supervision of 3G licensing but also restructuring of Telecom Act and PTA so it could no more be referred as independent organization.
