Termination of 3G consultant inquired
Islamabad: The Australian high commission has sent a letter to the Pakistani Authorities seeking the reason behind the cancelation of the contract of Australian consultant, who was hired by PTA for 3G technology’s launch in Pakistan.
The letter was delivered to Ministry of Foreign Affairs few days ago, demanding he reason behind the termination of the contract of Mr. Rob Nicholls and inquiring over the future planning of PTA regarding 3G licensing. The letter was forwarded to the Ministry of Information and later, the ministry further sent it to Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) for further proceedings, but the PTA is yet to reply.
An official of PTA requesting anonymity stated that the delay is being made by the PTA authorities because only chairman of the organization is authorised to reply to such letters but currently no one is chairing the authority as the previous chairman had been sacked by Lahore High Court, and the other two members of the authority were not authorised to respond to it. The Spokesman has also learnt that the members namely Nasrul Karim member finance and Dr Siddiq Khawr Khokhar member technical are also not paying much heed to the issue as the contracts had been given to the foreign consultants by then chairman Farooq Awan without taking them into confidence.
Rob Nicholls, the Australian national was hired along with two other consultants, Martin Sims of UK, and Dennis Ward of Canada, by then PTA chairman Farooq Ahmad Awan. An amount of 70 million PKR was supposed to be distributed among the consultants, and was to be delivered within three months according to the contract they signed. The consultants visited Pakistan in November to inspect the market situation about launching of 3G, but in the middle of December 2012 when these consultants were off to their Christmas celebrations, Farooq Awan cancelled their contracts without giving any reason.
The amount including 15% of advance payment which they were supposed to be given was also halted by directives of the chairman. Later the chairman himself was removed on 15th January by the orders of Lahore High Court for his illegal appointment.
Initially, 51 applications were received by PTA in which 24 were declared irrelevant, and nine applications were shortlisted among the remaining 27. PTA then finally selected three applicants for four jobs including Rob Nicholls for Valuation Advisor and Spectrum Regulatory Policy Advisor, Dennis Ward for Spectrum Auction Design Advisor, and Martin Sims for Auctioneer, Auction Software Advisor, The Spokesman has learnt reliably.
When contacted, an official from Australian high commission has confirmed sending of the letter to the ministry but avoided giving further details.
The members of National Assembly’s standing committee on Information Technology were majorly found unaware of the issue while chairman of the committee Ch Muhammad Barjees Tahir told The Spokesman that this issue can be discussed in their upcoming meetings.
According to sources, the issue occurred due to the misunderstanding and lack of communication between the then chairman PTA and the members of its advisory board as the members were uninformed by the chairman about publishing of advertisement, selection of applicants and awarding of contracts. It has also been found out that the chairman had fired the consultants because he was facing a threat of NAB accountability about awarding the contract of millions to the consultants.
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