While acknowledging that government holds the ownership of the PTCL and the Ufone with majority of shares, the minister for IT & Telecom also accepted that the Ufone was not sharing its loss making balance sheet with the government.
“The Ufone was operationally under Eitsalat therefore the government was not responsible for its constant loss making,” Shaza Khawaja said talking to media at a conference titled – ‘5G and Beyond: Shaping the Future of Connectivity’.
The Ufone was launched in 2001 as a subsidiary of the PTCL, while the operations of PTCL was handed over to UAE based Etisalat in 2006.
The minister was asked the reasons for continuous losses faced by the state owned telecom company Ufone, at the same time other telecos including Zong and Jazz witnessed significant jump in the profits in 2024.
Ms Khawaja added that since the operations of PTCL and Ufone were with Etisalat the ministry of IT was not responsible for its financial health.
However, she said that the government of Pakistan was the owner PTCL and Ufone was a subsidiary of the PTCL, but added that the balance sheet of Ufone was not provided to the government.
The minister said that the answer over the question of weak financial standing of Ufone should be provided by the telecom sector regulator the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).
Incidentally, the minister also declined to respond to the query that there was no member of the IT ministry at the Ufone board, and referred the question to secretary IT, who confused the Ufone board with the PTCL board.
The conference was organised by the PTA in collaboration with the telecom regulator of Malaysia and Nokia Pakistan.
Addressing the conference, Ms Khawaja presented the argument against auctioning the 5G spectrum, saying that it increases the cost of doing business for telecom companies.
This perspective aligns with the view that high spectrum costs can be passed on to consumers, potentially slowing down the adoption of 5G technology and hindering the implementation of relevant infrastructure development due to financial constraints.
She stressed that Pakistan can learn from the experiences of other countries who have already launched 5G including Malaysia- so that same mistakes were not repeated.
The minister acknowledged that Pakistan was facing internet congestion in the past 6 to 8 months.
“This was because only 274 Megahertz spectrum was available in the country – but I thanks the law minister and judiciary for getting 550 megahertz released for usage that have been stuck-up in various court cases,” she repeatedly said.
She informed about the roadmap to improve internet connectivity in the country including introduction of fiberisation policy, connecting with around four international undersea cables and promoting private sector investments through conducive policies.
