Breach of contract: 3G consultants rule out lawsuit against PTA, for now

  Far from pursuing legal action, the three consultants – who had been assisting the government for the rollout of the third generation (3G) cellular spectrum till their contracts were not cancelled – have taken a flexible position on the issue: they are more interested in finishing the job than suing Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) for breach of contract.

The 3G consultants Martin Sims, Rob Nicholls and Dennis Ward rubbished a recent media report, which said they were considering filing a law suit against PTA for illegally terminating their contracts – the report, which was based on anonymous sources, also said that the consultants wanted PTA to pay their consultation fee.
The consultants – who share among them, 60 years of combined experience in advising governments on telecom issues – further said they were in a professional relationship with the telecom regulator and “it will be unethical on their part to anonymously brief the media” on details of that relationship or to release details of confidential discussions.
“We have no desire to take legal action against the Pakistani government or the PTA,” they said in a joint statement while responding to the queries of The Express Tribune. “Instead, we prefer to come to an amicable arrangement whereby we do the work that we were contracted to do at the price agreed and the people of Pakistan get the auction they paid for,” said the statement, which was emailed by Martin Sims.
Since day one, the appointment of these consultants had remained a bone of contention among the three members of the PTA – of whom any two members, being the majority, can exercise the power of telecom regulatory authority.
Two members of PTA, Khawar Khokhar and Nasarul Karim Ghaznavi had refused to cooperate with their own chairman Farooq Awan for 3G auction on the grounds that the hiring of these consultants had violated the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority’s rules and The Pakistan Telecommunication (Re-organisation) Act.
The squabble within PTA set the stage for the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to intervene. The NAB, after listening to all stakeholders, declared the hiring of consultants as illegal. This led the authority to terminate contracts of the aforesaid consultants in the last week of 2012 – a development that ended 3G process prematurely for the third in the same year.

The government, PTA to be more specific, had already spent Rs20 million in 3G related advertisements without achieving any results so far – it will cost even more if the consultant chose to seek legal options.
Though the consultants ruled out a lawsuit, at least for a while, they confirmed that they want payment for services delivered already.
“We are very happy to be flexible in finding a way to resolve this but we are professionals and ultimately we must be paid for the work we have done,” their statement said.
They further said that they did not receive any payment from the telecom regulator, not even for the expenses they already made in this regard.
“None of us received any payment for the work we have done nor received any compensation for the expenses incurred in software development and travelling to Pakistan,” they said.
Explaining, they said they were issued cheques for the deposit, which was stipulated in their contracts but two of the cheques were cancelled by the PTA. “The third has yet to be honoured and we are assuming it will also be cancelled,” they said.

“It is our understanding that this cancelation is illegal as the cheques were payment for services already rendered,” the statement said.