Dr. Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui on Monday assumed the charge of Ministry for Information Technology and Telecommunication.
Spokesperson for MoIT Sagheer Ahmad Watto, while speaking with ProPakistani, said that the minister soon after his arrival chaired a meeting where Secretary IT Ministry Aamir Ashraf Khawaja gave the minister a detailed briefing.
He was given briefing on the overall working of the Ministry, its different wings and sub-ordinate offices. The minister was also briefed on ongoing development projects.
The Minister on the occasion reiterated the government’s resolve to take concrete steps for strengthening the IT sector. He called upon the officers to work as a team and contribute their best to that end.
According to PTI manifesto 2018, the party will champion Pakistan’s journey towards a knowledge economy, digitisation and boost the IT exports with a cost-cutting strategy driven from the center, improved infrastructure, uplifting human capital, supportive tax policies, incentivising innovation and encouraging entrepreneurship.
Pakistan’s ICT sector and exports have shown consistent growth in recent years. However, the IT sector stands far from its potential and exports hovers around USD 2 billion.
The primary reason is that Pakistan is uncompetitive in international market due to the repressive policies enforced by FBR along with lack of quality human resource, IT infrastructure, government sponsorship and innovation.
The government envisages establishing a Knowledge Economy Authority with cross-sectional powers across government departments to end fragmented approach and adopt a central strategic direction towards digitization.
The party also envisaged to launch the Digital Transformation Initiative Programme for digital infrastructure, citizen services and other e-government programs.
According to the manifesto, the PTI government will create and implement the National Digital Policy to ensure privacy, security, standardization and data sharing across all stakeholders.
It will create and implement a regulatory and legal framework to enable Open Government Data and platform for shared services, besides establishing a National Outreach Scholarship Programme to identify best minds and fully fund their placement in the top institutions.
PTI envisages transforming public administration with E-Governance initiatives to facilitate citizens’ access to justice, rights and other public services.
There are multiple issues in the governance system of Pakistan: inefficient data collection systems, record keeping, intra-coordination between various departments, black economy, tax evasion, and bureaucratic hurdles in solving public issues in federal and provincial levels. The government will ensure full capitalization of digital financial services to supplement digitization of documentation.