Dear All ,
Keeping in view the current situation of ISPAK , I hereby am publicly resigning from the EC of the
current ISPAK as clearly it does not represent the majority of ISPs in Pakistan . Over the last few weeks , I have been
quite silent and observing the current ISPAK try to improve the situation but
it appears that they are not willing to look beyond Provincial politics . As of
now , there is only one non Karachi member in the EC i.e , Mr. Shahid Alvi ; the supposedly VP
North who has been told on numerous occasions that he does not have the support
of ISPs in the region . Moreso , the current MOA cannot even have a VP North , as ISPAK
was wrongly registered under Govt of Sindh and does not have any jurisdiction over the rest
of the country .
I am one of the founding members of ISPAK , and it hurts me to see that a small group of people
from one city have destroyed the very fabric of unity that ISPAK once stood for
. I am also disgusted at the lack of representation in Islamabad which has now started to hurt all ISPs ,
and the current ISPAK has traded valuable representation for convenience. My
point has always been having a strong point of presence in Islamabad ; after
all 90% of your work is with PTA , PTCL , and MOST but for some reason ISPAK office
was established in Karachi , and now its come to a stage that nearly all EC
members are from Karachi .
I truly support the formation of a new body , which shall represent the ISPs and DNOPs on a national level , without getting into regional
politics . Its quite strange that ISPAK’s
situation is quite similar to the situation in Afghanistan … now its time for a broad based EC ,
free of such politics . Please note , Dec 2002 is not
to far away and we all have to get our act together . Without a strong national
representative body , we all stand to lose EVERYTHING
.
In support of the formation of the new ISPAK , I am holding an Iftari on
the 7th December in Avari (Lahore ) , all ISPs are invited to attend so that a plan is drawn out how
to get us back on track .
Naeem Haq
NEXLINX
-----Original Message-----
From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Saad Saleem
Sent: Friday, November 30, 2001
3:33 PM
To: ISPAK
Cc: Wahaj us Siraj; Engr.Imran
Akhtar Shah; Ahmad Nadeem Syed; Naeem Haq; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: ISPAK: IMPORTANT NEWS
Dear all,
Over last few
months, ISPAK has been made hostage of a particular group of people with their
own vested interests. A lot of arbitrary decisions have been made during this
period with the sole objective to benefit or suit the needs of a single or few
ISP's. Collective and participatory decisions to benefit the ISP industry as a
whole have been denied and rejected by the particular group who have been
trying to hijack ISPAK. Some pertinent examples are as follows:
1. The Executive
Committee member and Office bearers of ISPAK were never elected. These all
positions were self created by a bunch of people with vested interests.
2. In December last year, the then so called President of ISPAK, Mr. Sanaullah
Bhutta, has presented a proposal to MOST to offer cheap bandwidth solution to
PTCL on behalf of "ISPAK Consortium". This proposal was prepared by a
single ISP without consulting even the EC that time.
3. Many newspaper advertisements with vested interests were issued and no record
of funds collections from various ISP's were ever made public.
4. Decision of the EC to hold elections by June 15, 2001 was not implemented.
5. Voter registration fee of Rs. 10,000 was imposed for the ISP's taking part
in the elections
this move was tailored / manipulated to
exclude genuine ISPs fromelections.
6. A
three member committee headed by Mr. Bhutta, without any mandate from ISP's,
agreed to a Royalty formulae with MOST @ 1.5%. On resistance from majority of
ISP's, Mr. Bhutta informed that this Royalty would be 1.5% of gross revenue
minus PTCL charges. PTA has categorically denied this and no notifications was
issued by MOST/PTA to this effect. ISP industry is still harassed and
threatened by PTA on this critical Royalty issue.
7. The Registration
Committee formed by the EC decided to get the ISPAK registered with DTO.
Without consulting or even informing the EC, Mr. Bhutta got the "ISPAK
Karachi" registered with the Government of Sindh, thus promoting ethnic
sectarianism and provincialism. ISPAK, as name stands for, was supposed to be a
national body and not a regional or provincial body.
8. Majority of
licensed and operational ISP's were barred from participating in the so called
elections by embarking Rs. 10,000 voter registration fee. As a result, only 16
ISP's participated in the so called elections and this number by no means can
be considered as representative of the whole ISP industry in Pakistan which
consists of more than 70 ISP's.
9. No accounts of
ISPAK were ever presented to EC or Annual General Meeting. There was no audit
of ISPAK accounts. There has been serious complaints of misuse and
misappropriation of this account. Mr. Bhutta's apartment in Karachi was rented
to ISPAK to be used as office. No financial statements of accounts were ever
made public.
10. The MOA
(Memorandum of Articles) of ISPAK was changed and modified without the consent
of EC members. Mr. Bhutta forged the signatures of two ISP's, namely POL and
Nexlinx, on the fake documents and got the ISPAK Karachi registered with the
Government of Sindh.
11. After the so
called puppet elections, there was a serious quarrel between the President and
General Secretary. Due to which the newly elected President was forced to
resign as Mr. Bhutta and his allies used power politics tactics.
12. Mr. Bhutta's
nomination in the ISPAK from Centuryt 21 (ISP) was withdrawn, which means that
he couldn't be a member of ISPAK any more. "
We have tried very
hard to drive sense into the current and ex-office bearers of ISPAK so we could
work as a team for the ISP industry and not personal interests but could not
succeed and were left with no option then to form a new body registered at
Islamabad on all Pakistan basis to protect the interest of ALL ISP's.
We already have
support of some 30 ISP's whom we consulted before taking this decision and
have a working office in Islamabad.
We should also
highlight that these ISP's are from all over Pakistan and not one region like
in current ISPAK and they include national level ISP's like Paknet and Comsats
as well as small members from cities like Okara etc.
This email is to
inform all ISP's of the new ISPAK. We would be holding elections
before January 31, 2002 and all ISP's interested in joining can fill in
the membership form available at www.ispak.com.pk and send the form via mail or
courier at the following address .
4 Mezzanine Floor , G-D Arcade
73 East Fazle-Haq Road Blue Area
There
are no membership fees currently and once the new office bearers are elected
then they will decide on these issues after getting opinion of all members.
On behalf of Internet Service Provider Association of Pakistan
Islamabad.
