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Khosa to Expose Scams of Billions at Right Time

By Qudsia Jamaal on August 2, 2010



Sardar Latif Khosa, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Information Technology who resigned recently and wrote in detail to the PM that he would reveal billions of rupees scams to President Asif Ali Zardari at the right time.

“At this stage I will offer no comment, however, I confirm that I have written letters to the PM with all the proofs,” Khosa told The News when asked about the contents of his letters.

Sources close to him say he is waiting for the right time so that someone may listen to him.

In a recent tug-of-war between Khosa and Secretary IT, the former has written a few confidential letters to the prime minister alleging massive corruption in MoIT focusing on USF fund as grey traffic has been going on unabated there.

Sardar Latif Khosa told The News he had written letters to the prime minister according to his conscience because it was the PPP, which would be blamed for inactions.

However sources close to Khosa say letters sent to the PM were loaded with annexure showing proofs but so far no response has been given by the PM.

Regarding grey traffic, billions of un-audited money of MoIT, the games being played by IT Board and the role of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), Khosa in one of his letters to PM has written: “Projects worth billions and subsidies to his (secretary IT) credit were neither audited by AGP nor mandatory report submitted to the National Assembly, which I directed. No better were the affairs of the ICT R&D. Both of which Senate Standing Committee and National Assembly Committee on IT have advised enquiries and regarding which I had also done so but with no progress. The board members were themselves bidders and with their conflict of interests under all standards national/international they continued to be there. They are all defaulters to the tune of billions and even defaulted towards fulfillment of their contractual obligations. How could I shut my eyes, as ultimately government would be blamed for inactions and collusion? I thus acted and also inserted these in the rules to stem illegalities. Even the PTA, which is under the Cabinet Division, is dicey about loss of billions of MOIT monies and grey traffic goes unabated causing loss of billions to the national exchequer.”

PTA says that it has recently raided some 25 illegal gateways to curb grey trafficking and the success of raid was 100 percent and PTA is still searching for other illegal gateways.

The spokesman of PTA while talking to this correspondent said that the billions of rupees for which PTA was being dragged into controversy were collected by PTA on behalf of MoIT and were submitted in the consolidated fund of MoIT in the Finance Ministry.

It is worth mentioning here that PTA has so far issued 14 Long Distance and International licenses to telecom operators, which could transfer the international calls landing in Pakistan and whosoever, apart from these 14, would operate, as a gateway would be charged under grey trafficking.

Posted on 2 August 2010

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  • Yasir Qm

    National ICT R&D Fund is a premiere research and development organization of the country. It provides funding for research in various fields of ICT including (but not limited to) Telecom Networks Management, Intelligent Mobile Devices, e-Learning, e-Health and Network Security. It also provides funding for Human Resource Development projects. It also grants higher education scholarships to hundreds of students within the country. However, this organization is in a severe financial and management crisis these days.

    The trouble for this company started when its CEO Dr. Qasim Shiekh completed his three year term. The HR for the company followed the normal routine of advertising the position and conducting interviews for it. At this point the Minister of IT, Sardar Latif Khosa, who was also the chairman of the Board of Directors, started pushing for his own nominee. His nominee was none other than his own brother in law. The HR again followed the normal procedure of verifying his credentials from the HEC. It was found that the Canadian Institute that he obtained his degree from was not recognized by the HEC and his candidature was rejected by the Human Resource Governing Committee. This infuriated the minister of IT and he dismissed the industrial representatives on the board of directors. It must also be mentioned that he had also dismissed the company secretary earlier.

    Now the company has been without a CEO for about two months and without a board for a month. What makes matters worse is that the company does not have an approved budget for the next financial year. The funding for all the projects has been stopped, scholarship programs have been put on a halt and employees have not been paid salaries for two months. The sacked directors have appealed against their dismissal in the Lahore High Court but the slow legal process is not expected to produce any immediate results. The prime minister seems to have noticed the bad state of affairs in the IT Ministry and has dismissed the Minister of IT. But the prime minister has not taken any action since taking direct charge of this mismanaged ministry.

    It is requested that the Prime Minister take notice of this alarming situation and take immediate steps to stop this downward slide. The research and development projects funded by ICT R&D Fund provide an opportunity for the universities and industry to conduct cutting edge research within the country. Hundreds of researchers working on their Master