Cellular companies and Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) will be asked to appear before the Senate Standing Committee to explain their refusal to submit audit report of their operation.
The Chairman Senate, Muhammadmian Soomro referred the matter to the Privilege Committee of the House after taking the sense of the House on a complain lodged by the Senator Talha Mehmood, saying that mobile companies have refused to submit their financial details to the committee headed by him.
"The committee privilege was breached and I asked the Chair to refer the matter to the Privilege Committee." The house agreed to his demand, and the matter was referred to privilege committee. Earlier speaking on a Point of Order, Talha said there were 7.454 million unauthorised SIMs issued by these mobile companies and these were being used in crimes.
There is also no record of 35 million SIMs with Nadra, he said, adding that these SIMs were issued by mobile companies without taking any document. He wondered if an income tax officer or a clerk of the PTA could ask mobile companies about their audit report then why the highest body of this House could not demand for it. The House went with his point of view and suggested that matter must be investigated by a parliamentary committee.
On Saturday, a four-member committee consisting of Secretary Interior, Secretary Information Technology, Chairman Nadra and Chairman PTA was constituted by the Senate Standing Committee on Interior to finalise modalities as to how to streamline the matters regarding the unauthorised SIMs and other procedures.