ISLAMABAD ( MEDIA REPORT )
State Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication Anusha Reham said that Pakistan had second highest taxation in the world in the telecom sector.
Expressing serious concerns over heavy/double taxations on telecom sector, Anusha said that business environment for IT sector in the country was going to get very tough. After the federal government, provincial governments have also imposed heavy taxes on telecom sector, especially on broadband services, which was negatively impacting the business and growth of telecom sector, said the minister. She further said after the 18th Constitutional amendment, telecom was still a federal subject. Currently some provinces are collecting tax on services, which gave the perception and in reality as well, that there was double taxation in the country.
Currently national roaming was allowed and if provinces continued collecting taxes then it would require provincial roaming. Nobody could define the limits for acquiring telecom services while moving from one province to another. Anusha Rehman said that access to broadband services in the country was three percent before the launch of 3G/4G services, which has now jumped to around 15 percent. The committee discussed the “Telegraph (Amendment) bill 2014” moved by Asiya Nasir and unanimously agreed with its proposals.
Separately, the chairman of National Assembly Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunication’s on Thursday threatened to resign from the position if cellular companies disobey his directives to brief the committee. Meanwhile, state minister for IT and secretary said they were not bound to brief the committee. Captain (r) Mohammad Safdar threatened to resign while chairing the committee meeting on Thursday. He also issued directives to write to the cellular operators to convert mobile towers from generators to solar towers in one year, as the latter are causing environment pollution and serious annoyance to the public.
But again both the IT minister and secretary said there were no licence obligations for the cellular companies to convert to solar towers. Safdar said that if one goes out of Islamabad and Murree, mobile signals disappear, and the cellular operators were not fulfilling their obligation to provide cellular coverage on inter-provincial roads and highways. The committee chairman also asked Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to present a matrix of cellular operators’ coverage in the country. Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari apprised the committee that in a recently held meeting of the Council of Chairs presided over by National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq a ruling was given that any private company, organisation or individual could be called on to committees’ meetings and it is obligatory for them to brief the committees.
However, he said there was need for legislation to summon private companies representatives to the committees’ meetings. However, Captain (r) Safdar insisted that the cellular operators would have to brief the committee about their performance.