Islamabad: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has formed a committee to revive the operations of the ‘neglected’ Special Technology Zones Authority (STZA) due to his dissatisfaction with its performance.
The PM held a crucial meeting today with high-level officials regarding the STZA. He instructed the committee to present its recommendations within a week and also directed to immediately operationalise the STZA’s board of governors which should consist of experts from the relevant field.
The committee will be led by the Finance Minister Ishaq Dar while other members include the Minister of IT and Telecom, the Minister of Law, Chairman BoI, Senator Afnan Ullah, Advisor to PM Ahad Cheema, Special Assistant to PM Jahanzeb Khan, and Chairman CDA.
The prime minister stated that any waste of public funds would not be tolerated. He pointed out that while Pakistani skilled youth were earning a living on their own, the relevant authority was not functioning properly.
The STZA’s true purpose, he emphasized, was to support technology and not real estate. He stressed that there must be no delays in reforming and reviving the organization.
The prime minister was also briefed about the interest shown by several hundred companies in STZA, with 63 percent being Pakistani companies and the rest from China, America, Turkey, and other countries.
Sources said that the high ups of STZA were asking for time from the Prime Minister for the last nine months but the PM did not bother to take briefing from the department merely because the previous government had established this department.
According to details, PM Shahbaz Sharif as chairman did not convene any meeting of STZA’s board of governors and recently the government posted a DMG officer as acting chairman STZA.
Sources said that Ministry of IT and Board of Investment officials had asked the high ups of this government to wind up this department as they are already doing the work which STZA is doing.
