ISLAMABAD: A parliamentary committee on Wednesday expressed dissatisfaction over award of contract by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to a company working as a partner with Israeli intelligence to monitor internet traffic and decided to invite representatives of Pakistani intelligence agency during next meeting.

The Senate Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat, chaired by Senator Talha Mahmood, was discussing a question moved by Senator Mushtaq Ahmed in the upper house on May 8 and was referred to the committee for consideration.

Though Senator Mushtaq Ahmed was not present, the chairman of the committee decided to take up the matter as PTA Chairman Amir Azeem Bajwa had turned up at the meeting.

On the request of PTA, the committee chairman decided to hold the meeting in camera due to sensitivity of the issue, to which Senator Mushahid Ullah Khan objected saying media should be allowed to know what the matter was.

However, it was decided that the meeting would be held in camera and the committee chairman requested the mediapersons to leave the committee room.

After the meeting, the committee chairman while talking to mediapersons said that it was decided to invite representative of a sensitive department in next meeting.

“We will seek opinion of a sensitive department regarding contract as we are not satisfied with the briefing given by the PTA chairman. We will continue discussing the issue during next meeting which will be held on Sept 26th. We want to bring the facts in front of media and people,” he said.

Senator Mahmood revealed that payments of tens of millions of rupees had already been released to the company.

“We should deal with the issue very carefully. We have also sought details of agreement from PTA. The company is indirectly linked with the Israeli secret agency. Moreover, the company has already been facing serious allegations,” he said.

Published in Dawn, September 12th, 2019