ISLAMABAD ( MEDIA REPORT )
Meeting of the Senate’s Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunications was held on Monday with Senator Shahi Syed in the chair.
The meeting discussed progress on implementation status of recommendations of the committee regarding increase in the pension of all the retired employees of PTCL and progress made so far on mechanism/policy being devised by FBR and PTA regarding collection of taxes ie GST and WHT from cellular operators.
The meeting was attended among others by senators Syed Shibli Faraz, Taj Muhammad Afridi, Dr Ghous Muhammad Khan, Secretary Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunications.
The meeting was informed that the matter of pensions was in the Supreme Court of Pakistan. “The court has asked both sides to provide accurate calculations about the amount of pensions.
The matter will be resolved as per directions of the court,” the meeting was informed.
The Ministry of IT secretary also informed the senators that meetings of PTET and PTCL as well as the board had been conducted to implement the final judgment of the Supreme Court.
Committee Chairman Senator Shahi Syed said that the Pakistan Telecommunication Employees Trust was an independent trust and it should solve and facilitate the issues of retired employees of PTCL.
The PTET managing director told the meeting that pensions were being disbursed and the only issue was about the 20% raise announced for civil servants in 2010 and the question of status of those retired PTCL employees.
Regarding collection of General Sales Tax and Withholding Tax from cellular operators, the FBR member told the committee that a software had now been developed to collect bi-weekly data of customers of telecomm companies.
The companies were reluctant initially to share this data citing their huge customer base and confidentiality, but the matter has been resolved after involving the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority. “Ufone, Telenor and Mobilink are providing data for the past three months and transactional audit of Telenor is being conducted,” the FBR official said. The committee was assured that there would not be any further delays.
The committee strongly recommended that withholding tax should not be deducted from cards worth rupees 100. The committee also asked PTA to take notice of free SIMs being sold in large numbers across country.
Published in Daily Times, November 7th 2017.