The National Assembly Standing Committee on Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development on Friday took exception to insufficient action against the corruption being committed in the OPHRD ministry’s sub-ordinate departments.
The committee, met here with Sheikh Fayyaz ud Din in the chair, was reviewing the compliance status of the recommendations made by the body in its previous meeting for prevention of corruption in different sub-ordinate department of Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development (OPHRD).
The body directed to the relevant officers to submit a comprehensive reply to the next meeting in that regard. Briefing on the issue of welfare of mineworkers, the Federal Secretary for OPHRD ministry said the directions of the standing committee were being followed in that regard.
He said Employees’ Old Age Benefits Institute (EOBI) and provincials’ governments were requested to devise a policy to register the mineworkers on the basis of quantity of production as well as initiate a proper legislation for their betterment.
The secretary said the ministry had already submitted a draft policy regarding registration of the mines and mineworkers on tonnage/production basis in compliance with the recommendations of the Standing Committee. The committee seemed unsatisfied with the briefing and directed the ministry to come up with complete details in the next meeting. The forum also decided that the next meeting would be held at Quetta in November.
Regarding the issue of Guli Rozi, wife of Ghulam Durrani, who stuck in China since 2016, an official of Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the committee that the Chinese authorities were contacted in that regard. They informed that Guli Rozi did not want to come back Pakistan and decided to settle there on her own will, he added.
He said the concerned department of Ministry of Foreign Affairs would approach Ms. Rozi and further details would be submitted in the next meeting.
The meeting was attended by multiple Members of National Assembly (MNAs) including Shahid Ahmad, Sajid Khan, Zulfiqar Ali Khan Dullah, Haji Imtiaz Ahmed Choudhary, Atta Ullah, Sobia Kamal Khan, Tashfeen Safdar, Syed Javed Hasnain, Zahra Wadood Fatemi, Syed Abrar Ali Shah, Dr. Mahreen Razzaq Bhutto and Muhammad Jamal Ud Din.
The senior officers from ministries of OPHRD, Finance and Foreign Affairs, and Overseas Pakistanis Foundation, Bureau of Emigration and Overseas Employment and Workers Welfare Fund also attended the meeting.
PTA: Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Friday informed the National Assembly Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunication that it had blocked around 732,000 illegal Subscriber Identity/Identification Modules (SIMs) during 2021 till date.
However, the committee meeting that was chaired by Ali Khan Jadoon, expressed dissatisfaction over the action taken against the illegal use of the SIM cards, directing the PTA and NADRA chairmen to appear before the body with a comprehensive plan of action in that regard. The committee observed that the illegal SIMs were a threat to the county’s security. The chairman said “We want to end the issue of illegal SIMs as soon as possible but the departments concerned are not cooperating with us as these are threatening the national security.”
PTA representatives informed the committee that the authority had introduced stringent measures to check the illegal SIMs and problems had been considerably reduced.
He said the PTA had also taken punitive action against mobile operators whose sales centers or franchises were found involved in the issuance of SIMs without fulfilling mandatory requirements and verification. “We have directed the mobile operators not to issue SIMs without biometric verification”. Member National Assembly Sher Ali Arbab was critical towards the PTA for not solving the issue of the illegal SIMs and said, “We are hearing the same briefing from the last many months as no concrete steps have been taken by the authority to settle the issue threatening to national security”.
He was of the view that the chairman of the committee must take action against those officials who were summoned, but failed to appear and brief the body. The lawmakers were of the view that all the fraudulent activities were being carried out through these illegal SIMs. Member Naz Baloch suggested establishing special cyber units in the police stations for the registration of complaints. She also recommended empowerment of Cybercrime Department by employing more staff as the existing strength was insufficient to handle the growing cases of cyber-crimes.
Member National Assembly Ali Gohar Khan suggested getting a comprehensive briefing on cyber-crime related legislation.
