The Senate Standing Committee on IT and Telecommunication has officially issued a strict one-month deadline to finalize the Telecom Competition Rules. This decisive ultimatum arrives after an astonishing eight-year delay.
During the latest committee session, chaired by Senator Palwasha Khan, PTA Chairman Major General (Retd.) Hafeez ur Rehman briefed the attendees. He made his department’s position absolutely clear. According to him, PTA has already drafted the competition rules. Furthermore, the authority has successfully forwarded these drafts to the Ministry of IT four separate times.
Additionally, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) issued seven distinct reminders to the Ministry of IT regarding the pending approval. Consequently, the Chairman washed his hands of the massive delay. He flatly stated that only the Ministry of IT can answer when the rules will see the light of day.
This massive bureaucratic failure sparked heavy criticism. Senator Shahadat Awan aggressively confronted the officials. He demanded to know exactly what the Ministry of Law has been doing for the past eight years while these rules remained pending.
In response, officials from the Ministry of Law offered a remarkably weak defense. They merely stated they would “check” if the Ministry of IT had ever actually forwarded the rules to them. Naturally, Senator Awan bluntly pointed out that the Ministry of Law is completely ignorant of the rules’ very existence.
Ultimately, the committee refused to accept any more excuses. They handed down a strict one-month deadline to finalize the Telecom Competition rules once and for all.
