Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunication has directed Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) to prepare slabs regarding extra surcharges on its consumers’ utility bills.
The committee met with Senator Rubina Khalid in the chair to discuss complaints regarding non-issuance of utility bills by PTCL to its users and levying the surcharges on consumers on account of non-payment of bills on the due date.
Rubina Khalid said that the delay in phone bills occurs on behalf of PTCL but the users were being burdened by non-payment surcharges of 10%.
The committee members stressed that there were several areas where bills were not being received while E-bills could not be downloaded due to weaker internet services.
Senator Rehman Milk asked the representatives of Ministry of IT to solve the issue of pending payments of pension to retired employees of PTCL to which the ministry assured the senator that this issue is being taken care of.
Senator Malik said that Pakistan must adopt the Italian model to curb the menace of corruption from the country.
“According to Italian Framework, the record of monthly incomes every employee of every ministry was published on the ministry’s website. This practice made it easier for the authorities to prepare the audit report for tax invaders. Italy punished 5000 people for corruption under this framework “, he said.
He said that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has not created any rules and regulations regarding the scrutiny of social media users.
“Contract of RTS and RMS was given to a foreign company instead of a local company. There are daily 200 illegal attempts by Indian hackers on Election Commission official website”, he informed the house.
The house asked the ministry and authorities concerned to prepare the report regarding the cyber crimes, cyber hacking and cybersecurity situation in the country and present in the next meeting.
The meeting was attended by Senators Rehman Malik, Rubina Khalid, Rukhsana Zuberi, Kulsoom Perveen, Sana Jamali and Adbul Ghafoor Haidri along with officials of PTCL and Ministry of IT.