Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication: attached departments being run on ad hoc basis

The attached departments of Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication are being run on an ad hoc basis, hampering its performance in execution of important development projects, informed sources told Business Recorder. The matters in the IT&T attached departments are left at the mercy of several officers with dual charge, negatively affecting official work, Ministry sources revealed.
The posts of managing director of the Telephone Industries of Pakistan (TIP), managing director Telecom Foundation (TF), chief executive officer (CEO) Universal Service Fund (USF) and MD Pakistan Software Exports Board (PSEB) have been lying vacant between 3 months and 2 years and they are being run on an ad hoc basis. Syed Khalid Ali Raza Gardezi, Joint Secretary (Admin), has been holding the additional charge of MD Telephone Industries of Pakistan's (TIP) for about one and a half years with TIP almost non-functional with annual revenue of about Rs 20 million in 2015-16 while annual revenue was around Rs 700 million a few years ago, official sources revealed.
"TIP is a state owned enterprise (SOE) currently running in losses and draining an average Rs 500 million a year for salary support. The current challenges being faced by the company included obsolescence of machinery, plants and skill base, intense competition in the telecom sector (especially vendor market), legacy of public sector culture of entire workforce, and above all heavy burden of salaries (up to Rs 500 million annually)," the sources said.
The Senate Standing Committee on IT repeatedly expressed annoyance at TIP affairs and directed the management to resolve its outstanding financial and land/properties issues on an urgent basis. TIP legally has 2,415 kanals but only 432 kanals are in its possession, while 611 kanals are currently with NRTC and the remaining land is controlled by PTCL. The government has failed to come up with any revitalization plan and TIP is currently on the privatization list of the federal government, sources added.
Yasir Qadir Director, Telecom Ministry of IT, has been holding the additional charge of managing director Telecom Foundation (TF) since February 2017 as per the official website. Earlier, the additional charge was given to the Additional Secretary of IT Ministry. However, the respective official is yet to be hired.
After the contract expiry of former CEO USF Faisal Sattar in October 2016, Haaris M Chaudhry, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Company Secretary, is holding the acting charge.
The Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) in its latest report noted poor planning of projects design and non-achievement of milestones. The annual contribution to USF fund for the last three years - 2013-2016 - was Rs 43.553 billion whereas an amount of Rs 38.018 billion remained unutilized as on June 30, 2016 as per record of Manager USF Fund at Ministry of Information Technology. USF Company could hardly utilize Rs 5.535 billion of USF collected due to which the management could not achieve its goals. The Audit report observed USF management did not properly design, plan and execute the projects within the given time period.
The position of MD PSEB is vacant since July 2017 after the contract of former MD Shehriyar Hussain expired. PSEB has projected to increase the country's information technology (IT) exports to $5 billion by 2020 and $10 billion by 2025 as compared to the current $2.8 billion.
In the National Assembly Standing Committee on IT PSEB official admitted that Pakistan is far behind IT exports compared to neighboring countries, and cited Pakistan's poor image as the major reason behind low IT exports. However, the committee officials termed lack of capacity building, incompetence of commercial councilors abroad, lack of quality software and standard certification system as major reasons for low IT exports. When contacted, the spokesperson for Information Technology and Telecom Ministry confirmed that the posts of MD TIP, MD TF, MD PSEB and CEO USF are vacant but claimed that the process of filling these posts has been initiated.