Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) and Warid Telecom have caused a loss of over Rs. 100 billion to the national exchequer by offering 3G, 4G and LTE services without any license, said Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) in its annual audit report.
The report said that Pakistan Telecommunication Authority was asked about the matter and was given a chance to respond on why it allowed both operators to offer 3G and 4G LTE services without any licenses, but due to unconvincing response, both the cases should be investigated properly, responsibility be fixed and disciplinary actions be initiated against those who granted permission to Warid and PTCL for provision of 4G / LTE services without spectrum and licenses.
It maybe recalled that PTCL and Warid have been offering high-speed wireless broadband services under the banner of 4G LTE, Charji, Nitro and EVO brands.
The audit report on the accounts of Telecommunication Sector for Audit Year 2015-16, a copy of which is available with ProPakistani, said that operators must obtain radio frequencies for offering a service, however, in case of PTCL and Warid, both operators kept offering high-speed broadband services without any licenses or spectrum.
Warid Telecom
Audit report said that PTA unlawfully allowed Warid for offering 4G LTE services to public at large. Report said that Warid was neither a Next Generation Mobile Services (NGMS) license holder nor participated in the auction of 3G/4G services.
Report said that this decision of PTA — for allowing Warid to offer 4G service without a license — resulted into loss of Rs 51,692 million (US$ 306.920 + 210 million) to the national exchequer.
Report said that matter was raised in last year’s report and PTA was given a chance to submit its reply to DAC (Departmental committee), however, PTA’s response wasn’t convincing.
During DAC held on 11th January, 2016 the Chairman PTA elaborated the details of auction and permission granted to Warid Telecom with facts and figures and categorically stated that PTA Authority owns full responsibility of reported auction which has been done in the best interest of the country.
Report said that Audit did not agree with the contention of PTA management as the case for permission was not presented before Federal Government being a competent authority for issuance of policy directives for NGMS.
Further, Warid Telecom did not participate in the auction of NGMS as required in the policy directives of the Federal Government. Therefore, DAC decided to place this para before PAC for final decision.
Therefore, Audit recommends that matter should be investigated, responsibility be fixed and disciplinary actions be initiated against those who granted permission to Wand for provision of 4G / LTE services and not getting approval from the Federal Government under intimation to Audit.
PTCL Case
Report further said that PTCL is also 4G LTE through Charji Evo and Charji Evo Cloud devices to its customers without buying spectrum in 3G / 4G (NGMS) auction.
Report said that this offering from PTCL resulted into a loss of Rs 42,600 million to the national exchequer as PTCL did not participate in the auction of 3G/4G licenses.
Report said that PTCL should have bought the liceses just like Zong did by paying above mentioned amount during auction for provision of these services.
Report said that this issue was also raised and reported to PAO and management in September 2015. It was replied that licenses issued under the Deregulation Policy 2003 were technology neutral. Licensees could, therefore, deploy any advanced Technology while following the terms and conditions of the License.
Audit report said that this reply was misleading, therefore, not tenable as PTCL was providing 4G LTE services without getting license for the purpose.
DAC in its meeting held on 11th January, 2016 directed PTA management to provide final outcomes of the court case regarding provision of 4G / LTE services to DAC and Audit. No further progress was intimated till finalization of this Report.
Audit report said that based on these facts, it is recommending that the matter should be investigated, responsibility be fixed and disciplinary actions be initiated against those held responsible for allowing PTCL to operate 4G LTE services.
Moreover the loss of Rs 42,600 million be recovered and deposited in the Federal Consolidated Fund under intimation to Audit.
What Next?
It must be noted that AGP audits every government department once in an year. Any objections raised in the audit report are discussed, briefed by concerned body in DAC (Departmental Committee). DAC then either dismisses the cases of refer them to PAC (Public Accounts Committee) for further investigation.
PAC, after reviewing DAC report, either assign the cases to relevant authority (NAB, FBR etc.) for further investigation or dismisses them for ever.
LOL .. Thats funny :)
People are going to the past of pakistan
PAC is investigating audit reports of 5 years before and this is a rutine matter. Every Govt do corruption and chairman PAC (who should be from opposition) investigate corruption of 5 years earlier reports when his Govt was in control. When his tenure ends Govt also ends its tenure. And same cycle repeated every year. Now a days PAC has PPP chairman who is investigating PPP corruption. Lols
Providing reasons for both PTCL and Warid to run, which they are…paving the way for them
What about the LTE License that Warid got before everybody ?
no they had no LTE license, They have technology neutral license they can use it for anything,,,,
Yalla dono companies k peechy arbi hain. Aur nawaz sharif ny arbiyon ko kuch nai kehna
Yalla arabio ne 2 arab dollar jo 2013 main tohfy k tor par diye thy wo wapas mang liye, shaikh nawaz bin sharif naraz hain arabio se
Musharraf sold them these licenses, the government is taking steps to find out why.
So go complain to Musharraf.
no sir they have not any licence uptill now.
bari jaldi nahi hosh may aa gay?
I believe the license they have is “technology independent”
Tech Nuetral term is being use to mislead facts. Does it mean they can launch even 5G on it? Tech Nuetral doesn’t mean they can carry this spectrum for 6G, 7G or 8G in future.
Neutral hai just like telenor 4g wala
Tech Nuetral means company can provide any available tech to provide services like Telenor can provide 2G/3G/4G on its spectrum. But it doesn’t mean Telenor can provide even 5G/6G/7G on this spectrum. Same went for Warid.
Your logic is stupid
You can convince me with your Not so stupid logic. So you really think Mobilink and Telenor will provide 5G without getting license as they have Tech neutral spectrum?? Fingers crossed for 6G as well.
First and foremost thing is that Warid asked them for a permission for LTE usage on their licensed neutral spectrum. PTA can’t just refuse that without any logical reason. Furthermore you don’t know international laws, maybe you think thuggery like Pakistan is okay everywhere in the world.
1st of all Thank you for telling me Int laws.
2nd every suspicious thing lies in that PTA approval
3rd you are not making any sense, So keep your Mouth Shut
If you are so silly enough to not know anything about pta licensing then u better keep ur mouth shut. PTA gave them license and permission you can’t yell now that this government auditor says this or says that and we should pay more. People like u deserve to die in rotten country whose leaders enjoy to travel and build properties in west.
And You deserve to die in a high quality foreign gutter. Thank you
And Shia like you come here for asylum
Ohhhhh Welll Now I understand why you are being so harsh on me. Yeh aap nahin aap ke andar ka bughz e Ali a.s bol raha tha. Thank you for exposing yourself.
now these idiots noticed it :D it was in my mind from long time
Why did you not say so earlier, they could have investigated them earlier saving millions of rupees of the tax payer.
“initiated against those who granted permission to Wand and PTCL for ”
Btw, what is that “Wand”, is it a new network? :D
What is opinion of propakistani? please do not leave such news pieces without educating us on the topic. please update it. We have all heard about tech neutral licenses of past, but were they really so?
PTCL doesn’t care about its repu business and future growth. They are already going nose down like a missle hitting the bottom.
They already suspended its Charji services after spent billions on its setup and marketing. The incompetents CXOs draining this company like blood suckers.
Didn’t Warid have a technology neutral license? If yes, then what’s the issue?
They never had LTE License they just bought high speed connectivity account from PTA.
ZONG & TELENOR have true legal 4G License. Rest of the companies who claim to have 4G services are manipulating people with there high speed account connectivity only.
bongian na maro. Techonology neutral license tha un ke pass aur warid to 4g ki permission bhi pta ne bohat deir se di thi. masla yeh hai sab log peisa nikal rahay hain Pakistan se is liye ise dar jaiso ko masla ho raha hai. ptcl se 800 million dollars to le na sake ap chale hain us ko LTE se rokne……
Chskkas….;)
lol, now they must have earned so much money by now, they should be able to pay the authorities and bury this problem. This is real corruption in front of everyone. PTCL was caught before the 3G auction even began.
Exactly they should be investigated for these fake licenses.
Warid, PTCL, Upcoming Ufone’s U9 services are just high bandwidth limit account which they have bought from PTA.
Only ZONG and TELENOR have original 4G License.
now the question is how the mobilink will deal with this matter as warid and mobilink has been merged
PTCL have everything except competent resources at Management level. Most of the Management are so incompetent and inexperienced that they destroyed the company. EVEN there SEVPs, EVPs and General Managers are just like interns in other companies, They just doing trouble shoot and experiment with this poor company. PTCL HR hired the worst people on low salary OR they want incompetent people intentionally because they want ANDHOON MEIN KANAY RAJAY. when everybody is incompetent then who will blame who? it just you save my A*** and I will save yours.
in last two years the company is continuously in delinquency, issues which never ends, customers who always suffers, management who always hidden behind the wall, Wireless Broadband EVO which never work on good speed, landline which never get rectified, DSL which always repeatedly disconnected and DEAD most of the time, employees who always abusing the company and they work with zero loyalty and motivation.
Just go and spend few mins in any PTCL one stop shop across the country, which now they called smart shop (un-smart shop actually) and ask the customers who are coming there for complaints, or visit Bolta consumer website or just put google alert on a word “PTCL” or Pakistan Telecommunication company limited” for three days, you will be surprise to see the actual worst condition of the company reputation has become in last two years.
Just visit PTCL official facebook page, even just visit all the post of Propakistani about PTCL,even its a positive news, YOU WILL JUST FIND THE FRUSTRATED POOR CUSTOMERS, WHO ARE BANGING THEIR HEADS AND ABUSING PTCL FOR THE SERVICE ISSUES AND MANY OTHER ISSUES.
Look at there marketing campaigns, there Products and packages, there technical there infrastructure,applications, quality of service issues, Customer care, even there communication department.NO REPLY -NO RESPONSE AND NO COMMENTS is the policy.
Issues which never ends…
no that is wrong. they pay local engrr 40k and 1 million for arab on the same job in PTCL. thats why ptcl is in such mess.