ISLAMABAD (MEDIA)
A summary has been moved to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for seeking approval to place an interim arrangement for appointing an acting head of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) for the time being to run its day to day affairs, The News has learnt.
“We are expecting that some kind of interim arrangement to run the affairs of PTA will be in place very soon,” a top ministerial sources of PML-N cabinet told The News here on Saturday.
The Cabinet Division, the sources said, forwarded this summary to PM proposing an acting charge to be given suitable person on interim basis so that the solution could be achieved to first appoint members of PTA and then nominate one of them as chairman of the Authority.
When contacted, Principal Secretary to PM Nasir Khosa said on Saturday night that the PM office had not yet received this summary as it was currently under consideration at the Ministry of Law.
After getting viewpoint of the Ministry of Law, this summary would come before us, he concluded.
The PTA is being run without any authority as currently neither members are there nor its chairman and the government is really facing difficulties in tackling day to day regulatory affairs in an effective manner.
In this week, the government had to face tough questions in the Upper House of Parliament when senators raised questions about night package being continuously offered by the cellular companies and the role of the regulator was criticized.
The senators would convene panel meeting to evaluate performance of the PTA in near future which in accordance with law does not exist on the ground.
In the absence of its chairman, the PTA is practically not an authority, as all important decisions need the signature of its chairman. The PTA cannot even regulate many of its earlier decisions.