ISLAMABAD - The Public Accounts Committee on Wednesday sought a detail report from the National Accountability Bureau in two weeks on privatisation of the Pakistan Telecommunication Limited (PTCL) and alleged mismanagement by the then government.
PAC chairman and Opposition Leader in National Assembly, Syed Khursheed Shah ordered the audit officials to conduct audit of the PTCL and submit report to the committee.
"We wrote a letter to the PTCL management for its audit but they refused," audit officials informed the committee members.
Privatisation Commission chairman M Zubair briefed the committee members that privatisation of the PTCL was unfair and against interest of the country. The PTCL has not paid even a single penny from $800 million that it owed to the government of Pakistan, he said, adding the Etisalat has not paid a single instalment since 2008.
Zubair said, the government has handed over 3,214 properties out of 3,248 properties to the Etisalat and agreement of the PTCL was not transparent and it hurt interests of the country.
"The government is abiding by the agreement despite the fact that privatisation of the PTCL was not a fair deal," he said.
Zubair told the committee members that the government was bound to transfer all the properties to the Etisalat but the government failed to do so. "The Etisalat has withheld 800 million dollars after the government failed to hand over all the properties to the company under the agreement," he said.
The case was also referred to National Accountability Bureau but nothing concrete came out during the investigation, he said, adding the inquiry report is still pending with the NAB.
He said no audit has been conducted of the PTCL after 1996 as the organisation has virtually refused the auditors to let in for the job.
"No entity can violate constitution of Pakistan. Audit officials must do audit of the company and if the company denies the audit, then report the same to the committee for further action," the PAC chairman said.
The Privatisation Commission chairman informed the committee members that privatisation of the organisations was must that have failed to deliver and improve their services for the public.
The committee directed the audit officials to conduct audit of the organisations that are being privatised by the government. The audit officials, however, said that audit was only possible after privatisation of the public and private entities.
Khursheed Shah said that the Parliament was increasing pressure on the government to stall privatisation of the entities that were running in profit.
"Some organisations are running in loss of around Rs700 billion per annum. The annual loss of power distribution companies amount to around Rs500 billion per annum," said Zubair, adding that privatisation of the DISCOs would be completed within a year.
The committee members also raised their concerns about the ongoing work on New Airport Islamabad and alleged embezzlement of funds in the project and sought a report from Federal Investigation Agency on it in a month.