A $34 million payment to Google against direct carrier billing (DCB) payments has been ‘settled’, while the government will come up with a new payment mechanism to address the issue. .
This was disclosed on Monday during a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Information Technology (IT) and Telecommunications at Parliament House. Senator Kehda Babar presided over the meeting.
During the meeting, IT Ministry officials told the committee that the State Bank of Pakistan and the IT Ministry will come up with a new mechanism for payments to global app manager Google.
On releasing $34 million to Google against DCB payments, the committee was told there were some hurdles to clear, adding that app payments had been transferred to debit and credit cards.
However, this led to backlash from telecom companies and then Google. After which the Federal Ministry of IT also took notice of the matter and raised it with the Ministry of Finance.
The payment was made after the approval of Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif.
It has now been decided that the State Bank of Pakistan and the Ministry of IT will come together and come up with a new mechanism for their payments within a month.
Concerns were also expressed during the meeting over the government’s failure to open letters of credit (LCs) for the telecom sector, which is creating problems for the sector in importing critical equipment for infrastructure upgradation.
Officials from the IT Ministry suggested that they would start manufacturing the chip in Pakistan soon.
Two infrastructure manufacturing companies have been licensed.
